Have a daughter and 2 grandkids trapped in Chilliwack. And a granddaughter in Vancouver going to college.
It is a mess. I talk to them everyday. Can’t drive there to help because there is no access. To get there by road you have to drive down through Seattle and come up to the crossing to Vancouver. Then you can get no further because the roads are gone. Coming west through Jasper you can get as far as Kamloops then no access past that point. No fuel etc.
Big mess.
Mother nature isn’t always nice. One hell of a lot of work needed.
My daughter and 2 grandkids just made it back. They were in Abbotsford and decided to stop to fill up for gas to come back to Calgary and WHILE she was filling up the power/lights went out. They then decided to drive back to my daughter-in-law’s place on the island, leave their SUV there, and fly back via Victoria the next day ($500each via Air Canada). Just made it out, but now have to figure how to get their SUV back…
My Championship U12 boys soccer team played an Abbotsford team in San Diego at the elite Surf Cup. We crushed them. But they all seemed very nice … like good Canadians. Perhaps they should have stayed in San Diego … where it’s a lovely 82deg. F. today.
When did Tesla start making hoes and dozers?
Yep.. first things first boys… let’s setup the 100 square miles of solar panels to charge all this heavy equipment.
Oh … it’s coming. Planned inefficiency is the next chapter in Western technical evolution.
Old Buffalo Air L-188 Electra flying supplies out of Calgary to Vancouver.
Why has FJT not called the US for help.
FJT is stunned from the asshole both ways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiHthFdm8CU
I noticed the UK flag on the fuselage right behind the cockpit. I’m assuming it was one of those that Buffalo bought from a British company a few years ago, according to one episode of the TV series.
Buffalo Air was founded and run for the first two years by Bob Cauchie, an old Barrhead lad, who had spent 58 days alone in an Arctic winter after a plane crash, apparently a record. Another Canadian legend.
From his 2013 obit – “He was found on April 1st 1967 by Ron Sheardown and Glen Stevens, 54 pounds lighter, scarred by frostbite and smelling worse than a hog. Sheardown recalls, “He stood there with that blue suitcase, like a man waiting for a bus. In the moment of rescue, with the same determination that had so long sustained him, he drew himself tall and began limping toward the turboprop-a haggard creature with shaggy hair, one foot wrapped in dirty canvas, and a bearded, emaciated face lighted by a shining grin. “Hello,” Gauchie said. “Do you have room for a passenger?””
Best story ever. Bob Cauchie.
Part of my family homesteaded over that way in Manola in 1904.
Hardy folk.
Actually a friend of mine in the Alberta Independence Gang, had a similar but shorter experience in the Arctic hunting Musk Ox.
It will be a while before all those repairs can be made. You just can’t re-fill around those exposed pilings with material. They will have to come out. I’m guessing temporary crossings with complete reconstruction next summer.
When I was up in northern B. C., roads with washouts were often kept open by putting in a few Bailey bridges while repairs were being made.
Ain’t no baily bridge in the world gonna span that!
That’s a LOT of pilings exposed under the footings. Dang. Pilings are ONLY used in soft, water laden soil … so I expect the washout was caused by just too much more water in an already waterlogged soil.
Some places are tough to build.
Those footings and pylon columns are gonna have to come down to the NEW level of soil repose. Much taller columns … a total redesign and rebuild. It would be crazy to try to save any of the existing construction on filled soil.
Things are actually going about as fast and as well as you could hope, partly because a lot of private citizens have pitched in, for example bringing in feed for stranded livestock, and flying small planes full of supplies into cut off villages outside the towns you hear about (the situation there being worse because those people can’t even get in and out of the towns to find whatever might be available there).
Some help will be available from Washington state but the biggest help we could get right now would be if they would make sure the Nooksack River stays over there and not flowing out of its banks into the Sumas former lake. It appears that they have the dike there patched up and water is being pumped out into the Fraser now that it dropped back down to nearly normal autumn levels.
There’s a bit of a run on groceries everywhere but not a complete wipeout away from the main damage zones.
I would rather that the feds offer limited help and let the provincial government do the reconstruction, with some help from the armed farces perhaps. What is known about BC in Ottawa is zilch, our glorious leader thinks of this as his home but we all know how disconnected he is from any given reality he confronts, and here it was much the same, apparently not even much knowledge of the laws of the land. Lucky for him they don’t apply as he is a card carrier. But we don’t want Ottawans getting in the way of actual work going on.
Trudeau The Magnificent will find a way to Pay Off More Indians and get some more grease for SNC LAVALIN.
There has to be someway to get kickbacks going for Quebec out of this mess.
Maybe have all the drawings and engineering done up in French and hire French Engineers. And Construction workers. etc.
Any rock-doctors on board?
The ground there doesn’t exactly look like serious bedrock; more like glacial Till.
Not exactly a solid, landslide / flash-flood resistant, footing.
Yes they should have put in proper “grout curtain walls” preferably to bedrock, given the loose overburden. If the Dr “Muds” had done proper reports; all of this would have been set out in detail. But it appears the “close enough gang” saw the beer clouds coming in and decided to hoist a few instead of attending diligently, to engineering that will last.
This is the same stupid shit that happened to the nearly failed Oroville Dam in California a few years back with their unstable spillway…
This is basic engineering stuff that has been, part of the engineering bible since at least the 1960s; when my father used the technique on the Grand Rapids Hydroelectric project in Manitoba where limestone made for some unstable foundation.
you can expect info to dribble out over the next few weeks, but it means there is a lot of train traffic which won’t be running westward for a while
I know lots of CN people have been deployed from here to BC for the foreseeable future, to help with rebuilding… I also expect to see pretty much every contractor has either left ontario or started travelling west
I sure hope CN has their gender based analysis done and it’s up-to-snuff. Otherwise the federal government will have no choice but to shut it down. We can’t have these communities around this disaster inundated by evil men.
Meanwhile, the BC Dept of Low-ways couldn’t engineer crap.
I looked at the Othello washout on the Coquihalla, the south, middle and north spans ALL COLLAPSED.
100 year flood engineering? Not in this millennia or the next!
My father the hydro-electric engineer weeps from Heaven’s Gate…”Oh what have you people engineered!”
BC Dept of Low-ways breakout the sack cloth and ashes and repent for your engineering DEBACLE!
We are surrounded and lead by corrupt idiots, “from sea to sea, from the rivers to the ends of the earth.” Psalm 72
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Just throw a little rip-rap in there! That ought to do the trick!
From an engineering perspective that length of unsupported rail line on the left is quite impressive. Reminded me of those crazy ass bridges spanning across rivers in Nepal.
I do a small part in helping all types of critical infrastructure get built/repaired and I still can’t help but take so much for granted.
Mother Nature is the boss and as soon as you become complacent, you set yourself up to be a victim.
And good luck to those who have to repair those messes.
Thanks for posting this, Rob. It’s not getting any press here in the U.S.
Ugghh. I meant “Kate”, not Rob. Sorry.
Man it must have been one hell of a pipeline spill to cause all that damage.
Where are the protesting Injuns????
I was thinking that myself. Probably waiting for the road to their reserve (is that what they’re called in BC?) to be repaired first, so they can get out and get busy on blockades.
From the picture it looks as though there was never a solid support for the track, just a whole lot of soil.
Don’t really know if they use about foot sized boulders, many, many, a lot of boulders for the base.
Growing up in small country in the middle of Europe, watching them build roads, the first thing on the bottom would be a lot of rock and more rock and nothing but rocks, then gravel, then concrete, then asphalt.
Can’t tell if there were mud slides or water wash and if the result would be the same, it just seems a lot different.
What did I tell ya about sendin out them negative waves?
Oh, man. I only ride them, I don’t know what makes them work.
You speak my language! Great little movie. 🙂
2013 flood on eastern slopes of Rockies similar with great amounts of water in short time span carrying debris, rocks, boulders down tight valleys onto roads and thru towns and villages, Canmore, Exshaw, Harvey Heights.
Lots of shoreline and wash hardening with riprap to come in BC.
I had to stop looking at those images… so much toxic masculinity. I can’t believe it’s 2021 and there are so few men in these occupations who still have not stood aside for a woman.
I sure hope that they do full consultation with the appropriate leaders of the appropriate Indian band before any repairs are started.
When they situated the piers for that rail structure, did they not notice the deeply-cut gorge just upstream? And not understand what that meant?
Grok …
Obviously not.
BTW : The title of the photo “BC Hwy 1 – Repair work underway at Tank Hill” is yet another example of gov/media corruptive gaslighting attempting to say black equals white.
One look at that photo and it is obvious the “repair work” will be a total rebuild !
Given scale of the widespread highway and rail damage , the penchant for lengthy environmental reviews , gov lethargy and supply chain issues . it may be quite a long time before they are restored.
Good. The longer the ROC is cut off from Vancouver the harder it will be for them to spread their weirdness.
The Sons of Martha
Kipling
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited
that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally,
transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
They say to mountains, ” Be ye removèd” They say to the
lesser floods ” Be dry.”
Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd – they are not afraid
of that which is high.
Then do the hill tops shake to the summit – then is the bed
of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping
and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves’ end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden – under the earthline their altars are
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city’s drouth.
They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their job when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s days may be long in the land.
Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat;
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that !
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.
And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessèd – they know the angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessèd, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet – they hear the Word – they see how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and – the Lord He lays it on Martha’s Sons !
Famous last words. We should have used more rebar.
Well fellas, you should have viewed the other photos in the “album here” link, it is apparent that the contractors are backfilling around the surviving tower structures that support the railway and making very rapid progress. Probably a temporary fix and only usable at much reduced loads for the present, but it will get the railway link operational. The highway which snaked between the towers previously will probably be likewise temporarily fixed with a large Bailey bridge also with load and width restrictions.
I criticize the bc guvmint NDP-NFG as much as anybody here, and they have been delinquent through three disasters this year, perhaps at last they have had the good sense to get out of the way and allow the very capable contractors to work like they used to without endless environmental and first grifter negotiations. Apparently these civil engineering contractors have been thrown an open cheque book so things “might” improve rapidly.
As for the Coquilhalla highway that was constructed in haste as a BC guvmint (socred) showpiece for Expo 86, BC Highways geotech engineers who I were familiar with doubted the structures would survive 25 Years, well they were wrong but not by much, 35 years.
There are incredibly capable people in Canaduh, lets celebrate when common sense gives them a chance to prevail.
Thank Gia canoes have a low low carbon footprint.
Have a daughter and 2 grandkids trapped in Chilliwack. And a granddaughter in Vancouver going to college.
It is a mess. I talk to them everyday. Can’t drive there to help because there is no access. To get there by road you have to drive down through Seattle and come up to the crossing to Vancouver. Then you can get no further because the roads are gone. Coming west through Jasper you can get as far as Kamloops then no access past that point. No fuel etc.
Big mess.
Mother nature isn’t always nice. One hell of a lot of work needed.
My daughter and 2 grandkids just made it back. They were in Abbotsford and decided to stop to fill up for gas to come back to Calgary and WHILE she was filling up the power/lights went out. They then decided to drive back to my daughter-in-law’s place on the island, leave their SUV there, and fly back via Victoria the next day ($500each via Air Canada). Just made it out, but now have to figure how to get their SUV back…
My Championship U12 boys soccer team played an Abbotsford team in San Diego at the elite Surf Cup. We crushed them. But they all seemed very nice … like good Canadians. Perhaps they should have stayed in San Diego … where it’s a lovely 82deg. F. today.
When did Tesla start making hoes and dozers?
Yep.. first things first boys… let’s setup the 100 square miles of solar panels to charge all this heavy equipment.
Oh … it’s coming. Planned inefficiency is the next chapter in Western technical evolution.
Old Buffalo Air L-188 Electra flying supplies out of Calgary to Vancouver.
Why has FJT not called the US for help.
FJT is stunned from the asshole both ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiHthFdm8CU
I noticed the UK flag on the fuselage right behind the cockpit. I’m assuming it was one of those that Buffalo bought from a British company a few years ago, according to one episode of the TV series.
Buffalo Air was founded and run for the first two years by Bob Cauchie, an old Barrhead lad, who had spent 58 days alone in an Arctic winter after a plane crash, apparently a record. Another Canadian legend.
From his 2013 obit – “He was found on April 1st 1967 by Ron Sheardown and Glen Stevens, 54 pounds lighter, scarred by frostbite and smelling worse than a hog. Sheardown recalls, “He stood there with that blue suitcase, like a man waiting for a bus. In the moment of rescue, with the same determination that had so long sustained him, he drew himself tall and began limping toward the turboprop-a haggard creature with shaggy hair, one foot wrapped in dirty canvas, and a bearded, emaciated face lighted by a shining grin. “Hello,” Gauchie said. “Do you have room for a passenger?””
Best story ever. Bob Cauchie.
Part of my family homesteaded over that way in Manola in 1904.
Hardy folk.
Actually a friend of mine in the Alberta Independence Gang, had a similar but shorter experience in the Arctic hunting Musk Ox.
It will be a while before all those repairs can be made. You just can’t re-fill around those exposed pilings with material. They will have to come out. I’m guessing temporary crossings with complete reconstruction next summer.
When I was up in northern B. C., roads with washouts were often kept open by putting in a few Bailey bridges while repairs were being made.
Ain’t no baily bridge in the world gonna span that!
Maybe. Maybe not…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sudan_Juba_bridge.jpg
Other options…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callender-Hamilton_bridge
MASSIVE washout! I had no idea.
That’s a LOT of pilings exposed under the footings. Dang. Pilings are ONLY used in soft, water laden soil … so I expect the washout was caused by just too much more water in an already waterlogged soil.
Some places are tough to build.
Those footings and pylon columns are gonna have to come down to the NEW level of soil repose. Much taller columns … a total redesign and rebuild. It would be crazy to try to save any of the existing construction on filled soil.
Things are actually going about as fast and as well as you could hope, partly because a lot of private citizens have pitched in, for example bringing in feed for stranded livestock, and flying small planes full of supplies into cut off villages outside the towns you hear about (the situation there being worse because those people can’t even get in and out of the towns to find whatever might be available there).
Some help will be available from Washington state but the biggest help we could get right now would be if they would make sure the Nooksack River stays over there and not flowing out of its banks into the Sumas former lake. It appears that they have the dike there patched up and water is being pumped out into the Fraser now that it dropped back down to nearly normal autumn levels.
There’s a bit of a run on groceries everywhere but not a complete wipeout away from the main damage zones.
I would rather that the feds offer limited help and let the provincial government do the reconstruction, with some help from the armed farces perhaps. What is known about BC in Ottawa is zilch, our glorious leader thinks of this as his home but we all know how disconnected he is from any given reality he confronts, and here it was much the same, apparently not even much knowledge of the laws of the land. Lucky for him they don’t apply as he is a card carrier. But we don’t want Ottawans getting in the way of actual work going on.
Trudeau The Magnificent will find a way to Pay Off More Indians and get some more grease for SNC LAVALIN.
There has to be someway to get kickbacks going for Quebec out of this mess.
Maybe have all the drawings and engineering done up in French and hire French Engineers. And Construction workers. etc.
Any rock-doctors on board?
The ground there doesn’t exactly look like serious bedrock; more like glacial Till.
Not exactly a solid, landslide / flash-flood resistant, footing.
Yes they should have put in proper “grout curtain walls” preferably to bedrock, given the loose overburden. If the Dr “Muds” had done proper reports; all of this would have been set out in detail. But it appears the “close enough gang” saw the beer clouds coming in and decided to hoist a few instead of attending diligently, to engineering that will last.
This is the same stupid shit that happened to the nearly failed Oroville Dam in California a few years back with their unstable spillway…
This is basic engineering stuff that has been, part of the engineering bible since at least the 1960s; when my father used the technique on the Grand Rapids Hydroelectric project in Manitoba where limestone made for some unstable foundation.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc/51688335050/in/photostream/ is a better picture of the damage… looks like there were a couple of small culverts there, and they don’t appear to have failed, just likely not enough to move the water away fast enough…
you can expect info to dribble out over the next few weeks, but it means there is a lot of train traffic which won’t be running westward for a while
I know lots of CN people have been deployed from here to BC for the foreseeable future, to help with rebuilding… I also expect to see pretty much every contractor has either left ontario or started travelling west
I sure hope CN has their gender based analysis done and it’s up-to-snuff. Otherwise the federal government will have no choice but to shut it down. We can’t have these communities around this disaster inundated by evil men.
Meanwhile, the BC Dept of Low-ways couldn’t engineer crap.
I looked at the Othello washout on the Coquihalla, the south, middle and north spans ALL COLLAPSED.
100 year flood engineering? Not in this millennia or the next!
My father the hydro-electric engineer weeps from Heaven’s Gate…”Oh what have you people engineered!”
BC Dept of Low-ways breakout the sack cloth and ashes and repent for your engineering DEBACLE!
We are surrounded and lead by corrupt idiots, “from sea to sea, from the rivers to the ends of the earth.” Psalm 72
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Just throw a little rip-rap in there! That ought to do the trick!
From an engineering perspective that length of unsupported rail line on the left is quite impressive. Reminded me of those crazy ass bridges spanning across rivers in Nepal.
I do a small part in helping all types of critical infrastructure get built/repaired and I still can’t help but take so much for granted.
Mother Nature is the boss and as soon as you become complacent, you set yourself up to be a victim.
And good luck to those who have to repair those messes.
Thanks for posting this, Rob. It’s not getting any press here in the U.S.
Ugghh. I meant “Kate”, not Rob. Sorry.
Man it must have been one hell of a pipeline spill to cause all that damage.
Where are the protesting Injuns????
I was thinking that myself. Probably waiting for the road to their reserve (is that what they’re called in BC?) to be repaired first, so they can get out and get busy on blockades.
From the picture it looks as though there was never a solid support for the track, just a whole lot of soil.
Don’t really know if they use about foot sized boulders, many, many, a lot of boulders for the base.
Growing up in small country in the middle of Europe, watching them build roads, the first thing on the bottom would be a lot of rock and more rock and nothing but rocks, then gravel, then concrete, then asphalt.
Can’t tell if there were mud slides or water wash and if the result would be the same, it just seems a lot different.
What did I tell ya about sendin out them negative waves?
Oh, man. I only ride them, I don’t know what makes them work.
You speak my language! Great little movie. 🙂
2013 flood on eastern slopes of Rockies similar with great amounts of water in short time span carrying debris, rocks, boulders down tight valleys onto roads and thru towns and villages, Canmore, Exshaw, Harvey Heights.
Lots of shoreline and wash hardening with riprap to come in BC.
I had to stop looking at those images… so much toxic masculinity. I can’t believe it’s 2021 and there are so few men in these occupations who still have not stood aside for a woman.
I sure hope that they do full consultation with the appropriate leaders of the appropriate Indian band before any repairs are started.
When they situated the piers for that rail structure, did they not notice the deeply-cut gorge just upstream? And not understand what that meant?
Grok …
Obviously not.
BTW : The title of the photo “BC Hwy 1 – Repair work underway at Tank Hill” is yet another example of gov/media corruptive gaslighting attempting to say black equals white.
One look at that photo and it is obvious the “repair work” will be a total rebuild !
Given scale of the widespread highway and rail damage , the penchant for lengthy environmental reviews , gov lethargy and supply chain issues . it may be quite a long time before they are restored.
Good. The longer the ROC is cut off from Vancouver the harder it will be for them to spread their weirdness.
The Sons of Martha
Kipling
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited
that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally,
transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
They say to mountains, ” Be ye removèd” They say to the
lesser floods ” Be dry.”
Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd – they are not afraid
of that which is high.
Then do the hill tops shake to the summit – then is the bed
of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping
and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves’ end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden – under the earthline their altars are
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city’s drouth.
They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their job when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s days may be long in the land.
Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat;
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that !
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.
And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessèd – they know the angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessèd, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet – they hear the Word – they see how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and – the Lord He lays it on Martha’s Sons !
Famous last words. We should have used more rebar.
Well fellas, you should have viewed the other photos in the “album here” link, it is apparent that the contractors are backfilling around the surviving tower structures that support the railway and making very rapid progress. Probably a temporary fix and only usable at much reduced loads for the present, but it will get the railway link operational. The highway which snaked between the towers previously will probably be likewise temporarily fixed with a large Bailey bridge also with load and width restrictions.
I criticize the bc guvmint NDP-NFG as much as anybody here, and they have been delinquent through three disasters this year, perhaps at last they have had the good sense to get out of the way and allow the very capable contractors to work like they used to without endless environmental and first grifter negotiations. Apparently these civil engineering contractors have been thrown an open cheque book so things “might” improve rapidly.
As for the Coquilhalla highway that was constructed in haste as a BC guvmint (socred) showpiece for Expo 86, BC Highways geotech engineers who I were familiar with doubted the structures would survive 25 Years, well they were wrong but not by much, 35 years.
There are incredibly capable people in Canaduh, lets celebrate when common sense gives them a chance to prevail.