BC Peace Region drying out after flooding, Pine Pass to remain closed for a “number of days”

BC’s Peace region is picking up the pieces after devastating flooding this week.

Environment Canada says 11mm of rain was falling an hour, for 14 hours on Wednesday in Chetwynd. Dawson Creek set an all time rain record that day with just under 90mm.

“One of the things I will say here on the ground, I can honestly say this is probably the worst flood that I have ever seen and a lot of residents have ever seen in this area.” Peace River South Mike Bernier said from Dawson Creek.

“It’s amazing looking at the weather today, you would never have known, that just two days ago we were in one of the worst situations I have ever seen.”

The City of Dawson Creek declared a local state of emergency today to help tackle the clean up. Chetwynd did the same on Wednesday.

Dawson Creek Emergency Management Gordon Smith says they are still assessing damage to the community, the next step being to “figure out what we are going to do to get people back in their homes, businesses back up and running and infrastructure back.”

The area’s highway network took extensive damage with several closures still in place. Some of the worst hit stretches of road are in the Pine Pass between Mackenzie and Chetwynd where there has been multiple washouts.

“It will take at least a number of days for us to rebuild and repair.” Marie Butz with the Ministry of Transportation said “So recommendation for anyone needing to connect from the Northeast to southern parts of the province would be to encourage travel through Alberta.”

Highway 97 S between Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge is also closed. Highway 52 between Dawson Creek and Tumbler Ridge is down to single lane alternating traffic and Highway 2 through Dawson Creek is down to two lanes from 4.

Minister of State of Emergency Preparedness Naomi Yamamoto says they have expedited emergency financial assistance, and began accepting applications today. She says agencies from across the Province has descended upon the area to help with rebuilding, including even the BC Wildfire Branch, who sent a crew of 20 from Burns Lake to help with sandbagging.