33 Replies to ““You live in a town only 36 feet above sea level? On purpose?””
OK; but let’s be realistic. This is incredibly rich and fertile soil. It’s a build up of thousands of years of Fraser River silt, basically a river delta. Sumas prairie was a lake until the early 1900’s. A LOT of Dutch settlers/farmers work this land and they KNOW about living at or below sea level; it’s what they do.
It’s not like they’re aren’t dikes and drainage infrastructure all through the area. This ‘atmospheric river’ phenomena was way past what anyone planned for, and if it hadn’t been for the Nooksac(sp?) river in Washington St. flooding backwards into Canada this might not have been the disaster it is.
Glad to be up here on the High Plains. Yessiree!
Now, all those lowlanders to the south – Cummings, McRaes – are casting their covetous eyes northwards. I mean, my prime agricultural land may have a few more pebbles than their reclaimed marshland, but I’ll never have a canoe tied to my hitching rail.
Nice!
Alright MacMaster. No more irrigation water for you when the high heat of the apocalyptic global warming effect finally hits… at some… as yet poorly predicted… point in the future. I’m not sharing the non-existent power from my burnt out solar panel either. Dammit, is that toxic oil leaking out of my wind turbine?
USA: Spends money on infrastructure to protect low-lying areas from flooding.
Holland: Spends money on infrastructure to protect low-lying areas from flooding.
Canada: Spends money on pronoun cops and medical Stasi.
What about this:
Canada: “Spends money on infrastructure to protect lowlife”
Huh? That’s interesting. But how many years ago was there a 1,000 ft deep glacier covering the area? Why not plan for THAT?
Province-wide building codes are an obscenity. I didn’t know Sask had them. They don’t have ’em in Ontario, and they’re one of the reasons I left Quebec.
My humour may be a little too dry for some.
(groan!)
Your humour, among other things, is not dry in BC………
Well then… I am surprised to learn there’s a place in Saskatchewan other than Cypress Hills that’s more than 700 feet above the lowest point.
My grandparents moved from Saskatchewan to the area designated “Former Sumas Lake” in the 1930’s. ‘Barrowtown’.
First winter had a they had blizzard worse than anything they’d seen during their seven years in Saskatchewan. Main highway drifted in so bad it was impassible for two weeks. Funny how so many Canadians think BC’s lower mainland is a year-round banana belt… just forty miles inland in BC anything goes.
I remember wicked ice storms as a kid. Whiteouts and awful pile-ups on the TC Highway. Also Typhoon Freda.
Very productive farmland as someone mentioned. We had field corn 14′ tall one year; tourists driving by from Iowa stopped by to express their amazement.
Like just about everywhere, the area has its pros and cons. Borderline paradise in most summers but can test one’s resolve in any of the other three seasons.
I remember federal officials designating flood plains…..they were wide and long in Sask.
Heh…Puns are always appreciated, Boss!
There are many homes here in BC, built in floodplains and beside rivers and creeks, without thought to the high probability that these will flood at some time.
Why? Because they’re picturesque, and land is at a premium.
There was a time when I was much, much younger, a little Mugwump, when they wouldn’t issue Building Permits if you were in a floodplain.
Still, many of these prone dwellings still cannot get insurance, for the same reasons, so who rides to the rescue to save the day?
Big Gubmint.
There are many homes here in BC, built in floodplains and beside rivers and creeks, without thought to the high probability that these will flood at some time.
That’s the same mentality behind why people insist on building and living in houses near the banks of the South Saskatchewan River in Medicine Hat, and then complain when their basements are flooded from time to time.
Been there, done that, got the shirt and wrung it out…
(Except for the complaining part, Ma Nature doesn’t seem to have a complaint department)..
I promptly moved to higher ground, before it happened again and it DID happen again, several more times, in fact.
100 years LEVEL, not every 100 years..
Ma Natures’ delivery service holds no schedule, either…
I lived up on the hill on the south side, just down the street from the armory and around the corner from the exhibition grounds. No danger of being flooded there.
First thing I thought of. Med Hat allows floodplain development, gets flooded semi-regularly. Lethbridge, on the banks of the Oldman (a tributary of the South Saskatchewan) aside from the fort & Helen Schuler Coulee Center, does not allow floodplain development, no issues.
Ahhh yes; Gubmint… Big and otherwise; https://globalnews.ca/news/6359984/sechelt-seawatch-property-assessments/
To be clear, The Sechelt District approved development and issued Bldg. permits knowing there was serious concerns about the stability.
The Court recently absolved the District in a Civil suit.
Put that dry riverbed humour to rest.
Maybe they need more beavers in British Utopia?
I chose to live on top of hill, 200 feet above the local river, and some 3200 ft above the ocean. Felt safer.
People live on the slopes of Vesuvius. Great place for growing olives, figs, etc.
Flood plains have some of the most fertile soil on the planet, that’s why the US Feds maintain all them levees, why the Dutch do what they do.
Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances, and ya rake in the dough for a while.
But here in Canada…
when the dice finally come up snake-eyes, everybody starts pearl-clutching to all the Karens’ shrill screech of “What can we do to make sure this never happens again? Think of the children! There outta be a law!!!”
50 year resident across the line, this is the worse, sustained I’ve seen. 5 and a half inches rain in 24 hours. Usually it peaks and falls within 6 to 12 hours. This one held peak for 18 hours. The owners of a hundred year old house on the edge of flood way where it comes out of the Nooksack heading north said it had never had water in the main house. 18 to 24 inches inside.
This was BAD.
Why would the Frasier flood the Sumas Prairie if the pumps failed?
Jerry – I think Fraser River is actually at a higher elevation than the Sumas Prairie area so if it is in flood, then the waters will head south. The pumping station, as I understand the system, is pumping water from the low-lying areas into a higher dyked channel which drains into the Fraser.
Also read today the freezing level was at 8,000 feet.
So Mt Baker was in rapid Defrost mode.
Da map is da proof.
Those high and mighty western Saskatchewinians always thinking they’re better than the rest of us.
The other thing it points out is that the TC is a national joke of an embarrassment.
If it was in ON/QC Turdo-the-dumber would have been prancing about in front of the bought and paid for MSM propagandists, with billion dollar checks in hand and personal barber and photographer in tow.
It’s not like lives out west matter to the laurentian elites whose meat puppet he is.
If it was in the east, it would be a spare no expense gold plated six lane sharia compliant Gaia friendly express route from end to end.
I mean, come on man!
Let’s go Justine!
You don’t have a clue what your talking about.
I can see the turd saying “we’ll fix the federal highway infrastructure in BC, but they’re gonna be toll highways” and you’ll all whine and complain like QC did when Harper told them the same thing about the bridges.
Oh, and non-federal infrastructure, well, BC will have to funnel some of its diversity, inclusion and equity monies into the highways, I guess.
Probably a week to ten days to get Hwy 1 open through Abbotsford and the mudslide further east at Bridal Falls. Hwy 7 on the north side of the Fraser was opened up for people to get home from Hope and will likely need at least a week of further work to make it fully operational. Hwy 3 from Hope to Princeton may not be too badly damaged so could be open within 3-5 days. This would patch together a route from Vancouver to the Okanagan as there isn’t much disruption east of Princeton.
The Coquihalla looks to be a 3-6 month project, at this time of year conditions won’t be very good for reconstruction in a heavy rain and snow zone normally. It might be possible to repair one side of it and have alternating traffic going at low speeds before all the reconstruction is finished.
Fraser canyon and Pemberton-Lillooet both look to be somewhat easier to open but the latter is entirely unsuitable to heavy truck traffic, so the preferred route is likely to be 3 into the Okanagan then a choice between going back north through the Okanagan or on to Alberta using the rest of the southern route. Trucks can handle the two major mountain passes on Hwy 3 (Paulson summit and Kootenay Pass) but they are probably even more dangerous than the Coquihalla which at least has more than one lane for recovery in severe conditions. The Paulson gets a lot of snow and is two lanes all the way with a few passing lanes on hills.
Truck traffic will be challenged all winter by these conditions and looking back at other years, if it starts out wetter than normal there is usually heavy precip all winter. That could mean heavy snowfall events in the mountain passes. Better hope they get the rail link fixed soon.
Viruses, fires, floods. Hubris and bad management. Meanwhile, Mother Nature says “Hold my beer”.
OK; but let’s be realistic. This is incredibly rich and fertile soil. It’s a build up of thousands of years of Fraser River silt, basically a river delta. Sumas prairie was a lake until the early 1900’s. A LOT of Dutch settlers/farmers work this land and they KNOW about living at or below sea level; it’s what they do.
It’s not like they’re aren’t dikes and drainage infrastructure all through the area. This ‘atmospheric river’ phenomena was way past what anyone planned for, and if it hadn’t been for the Nooksac(sp?) river in Washington St. flooding backwards into Canada this might not have been the disaster it is.
Glad to be up here on the High Plains. Yessiree!
Now, all those lowlanders to the south – Cummings, McRaes – are casting their covetous eyes northwards. I mean, my prime agricultural land may have a few more pebbles than their reclaimed marshland, but I’ll never have a canoe tied to my hitching rail.
Nice!
Alright MacMaster. No more irrigation water for you when the high heat of the apocalyptic global warming effect finally hits… at some… as yet poorly predicted… point in the future. I’m not sharing the non-existent power from my burnt out solar panel either. Dammit, is that toxic oil leaking out of my wind turbine?
USA: Spends money on infrastructure to protect low-lying areas from flooding.
Holland: Spends money on infrastructure to protect low-lying areas from flooding.
Canada: Spends money on pronoun cops and medical Stasi.
What about this:
Canada: “Spends money on infrastructure to protect lowlife”
Huh? That’s interesting. But how many years ago was there a 1,000 ft deep glacier covering the area? Why not plan for THAT?
Province-wide building codes are an obscenity. I didn’t know Sask had them. They don’t have ’em in Ontario, and they’re one of the reasons I left Quebec.
My humour may be a little too dry for some.
(groan!)
Your humour, among other things, is not dry in BC………
Well then… I am surprised to learn there’s a place in Saskatchewan other than Cypress Hills that’s more than 700 feet above the lowest point.
My grandparents moved from Saskatchewan to the area designated “Former Sumas Lake” in the 1930’s. ‘Barrowtown’.
First winter had a they had blizzard worse than anything they’d seen during their seven years in Saskatchewan. Main highway drifted in so bad it was impassible for two weeks. Funny how so many Canadians think BC’s lower mainland is a year-round banana belt… just forty miles inland in BC anything goes.
I remember wicked ice storms as a kid. Whiteouts and awful pile-ups on the TC Highway. Also Typhoon Freda.
Very productive farmland as someone mentioned. We had field corn 14′ tall one year; tourists driving by from Iowa stopped by to express their amazement.
Like just about everywhere, the area has its pros and cons. Borderline paradise in most summers but can test one’s resolve in any of the other three seasons.
I remember federal officials designating flood plains…..they were wide and long in Sask.
Heh…Puns are always appreciated, Boss!
There are many homes here in BC, built in floodplains and beside rivers and creeks, without thought to the high probability that these will flood at some time.
Why? Because they’re picturesque, and land is at a premium.
There was a time when I was much, much younger, a little Mugwump, when they wouldn’t issue Building Permits if you were in a floodplain.
Still, many of these prone dwellings still cannot get insurance, for the same reasons, so who rides to the rescue to save the day?
Big Gubmint.
There are many homes here in BC, built in floodplains and beside rivers and creeks, without thought to the high probability that these will flood at some time.
That’s the same mentality behind why people insist on building and living in houses near the banks of the South Saskatchewan River in Medicine Hat, and then complain when their basements are flooded from time to time.
Been there, done that, got the shirt and wrung it out…
(Except for the complaining part, Ma Nature doesn’t seem to have a complaint department)..
I promptly moved to higher ground, before it happened again and it DID happen again, several more times, in fact.
100 years LEVEL, not every 100 years..
Ma Natures’ delivery service holds no schedule, either…
I lived up on the hill on the south side, just down the street from the armory and around the corner from the exhibition grounds. No danger of being flooded there.
First thing I thought of. Med Hat allows floodplain development, gets flooded semi-regularly. Lethbridge, on the banks of the Oldman (a tributary of the South Saskatchewan) aside from the fort & Helen Schuler Coulee Center, does not allow floodplain development, no issues.
Ahhh yes; Gubmint… Big and otherwise;
https://globalnews.ca/news/6359984/sechelt-seawatch-property-assessments/
To be clear, The Sechelt District approved development and issued Bldg. permits knowing there was serious concerns about the stability.
The Court recently absolved the District in a Civil suit.
Put that dry riverbed humour to rest.
Maybe they need more beavers in British Utopia?
I chose to live on top of hill, 200 feet above the local river, and some 3200 ft above the ocean. Felt safer.
People live on the slopes of Vesuvius. Great place for growing olives, figs, etc.
Flood plains have some of the most fertile soil on the planet, that’s why the US Feds maintain all them levees, why the Dutch do what they do.
Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances, and ya rake in the dough for a while.
But here in Canada…
when the dice finally come up snake-eyes, everybody starts pearl-clutching to all the Karens’ shrill screech of “What can we do to make sure this never happens again? Think of the children! There outta be a law!!!”
50 year resident across the line, this is the worse, sustained I’ve seen. 5 and a half inches rain in 24 hours. Usually it peaks and falls within 6 to 12 hours. This one held peak for 18 hours. The owners of a hundred year old house on the edge of flood way where it comes out of the Nooksack heading north said it had never had water in the main house. 18 to 24 inches inside.
This was BAD.
Why would the Frasier flood the Sumas Prairie if the pumps failed?
Jerry – I think Fraser River is actually at a higher elevation than the Sumas Prairie area so if it is in flood, then the waters will head south. The pumping station, as I understand the system, is pumping water from the low-lying areas into a higher dyked channel which drains into the Fraser.
Also read today the freezing level was at 8,000 feet.
So Mt Baker was in rapid Defrost mode.
On a tangent, this is cool.
https://en-ca.topographic-map.com/maps/qud/Saskatchewan/
Da map is da proof.
Those high and mighty western Saskatchewinians always thinking they’re better than the rest of us.
The other thing it points out is that the TC is a national joke of an embarrassment.
If it was in ON/QC Turdo-the-dumber would have been prancing about in front of the bought and paid for MSM propagandists, with billion dollar checks in hand and personal barber and photographer in tow.
It’s not like lives out west matter to the laurentian elites whose meat puppet he is.
If it was in the east, it would be a spare no expense gold plated six lane sharia compliant Gaia friendly express route from end to end.
I mean, come on man!
Let’s go Justine!
You don’t have a clue what your talking about.
I can see the turd saying “we’ll fix the federal highway infrastructure in BC, but they’re gonna be toll highways” and you’ll all whine and complain like QC did when Harper told them the same thing about the bridges.
Oh, and non-federal infrastructure, well, BC will have to funnel some of its diversity, inclusion and equity monies into the highways, I guess.
Probably a week to ten days to get Hwy 1 open through Abbotsford and the mudslide further east at Bridal Falls. Hwy 7 on the north side of the Fraser was opened up for people to get home from Hope and will likely need at least a week of further work to make it fully operational. Hwy 3 from Hope to Princeton may not be too badly damaged so could be open within 3-5 days. This would patch together a route from Vancouver to the Okanagan as there isn’t much disruption east of Princeton.
The Coquihalla looks to be a 3-6 month project, at this time of year conditions won’t be very good for reconstruction in a heavy rain and snow zone normally. It might be possible to repair one side of it and have alternating traffic going at low speeds before all the reconstruction is finished.
Fraser canyon and Pemberton-Lillooet both look to be somewhat easier to open but the latter is entirely unsuitable to heavy truck traffic, so the preferred route is likely to be 3 into the Okanagan then a choice between going back north through the Okanagan or on to Alberta using the rest of the southern route. Trucks can handle the two major mountain passes on Hwy 3 (Paulson summit and Kootenay Pass) but they are probably even more dangerous than the Coquihalla which at least has more than one lane for recovery in severe conditions. The Paulson gets a lot of snow and is two lanes all the way with a few passing lanes on hills.
Truck traffic will be challenged all winter by these conditions and looking back at other years, if it starts out wetter than normal there is usually heavy precip all winter. That could mean heavy snowfall events in the mountain passes. Better hope they get the rail link fixed soon.
Viruses, fires, floods. Hubris and bad management. Meanwhile, Mother Nature says “Hold my beer”.