Water begins spilling over landslide damming Chilcotin River
The province of British Co‐ lumbia issued an emer‐ gency alert Monday morn‐ ing after water began spilling over the landslide blocking the Chilcotin Riv‐ er.
Gerald Pinchbeck with the Cariboo Regional District Emergency Operations Cen‐ tre told CBC News that water began moving over the dam around 9 a.m. PT.
The province's emergency alert, sent at at 10:35 a.m. PT, urged residents anywhere along the banks of the Chilcotin River from Hancevil‐ le to the Fraser River, and anywhere along the banks of the Fraser River from the Chilcotin River to the Gang Ranch bridge around 25 kilo‐ metres downstream, to evac‐ uate immediately.
"The going concern are debris flows, which aren't in‐ cluded in the [river flow] modelling," Pinchbeck said. "We don't know what those impacts will be, but our con‐ cern is for the safety of peo‐ ple and infrastructure in the area."
In an update posted on Monday, the province said "woody debris" is already being carried down the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers.
As more water moves over the slide, officials are ex‐ pecting it to carry more de‐ bris, including fallen trees. Water levels along the Chilcotin River are expected to rise far above normal spring melt levels, while wa‐ ter levels along the Fraser River are expected to be be‐ low spring levels.
In a news release, the province asked people to stay away from the rivers due to the risk of fast-moving wa‐ ter and debris.
"Even if the water eleva‐ tion in an area may be simi‐ lar to freshet (spring flood‐ ing) levels, the water will react differently, with greater momentum and force, than a gradual increase in water lev‐ els," it said.
Bowinn Ma, B.C.'s Emer‐ gency Preparedness and Cli‐ mate Change Minister, is scheduled to provide an up‐ date at 2 p.m. PT. CBC will carry the livestream here.
Evacuation orders are in place along parts of the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers and people are being urged to stay away from the banks of both waterways.
On Sunday night, the Cari‐ boo Regional District issued three new evacuation orders along the Fraser River. One covers about 9.6 square kilo‐ metres along the Fraser Riv‐ er, just south of where it meets the Chilcotin River. A second order covers 3.5 square kilomtres along the
Fraser River just north of that confluence, upstream.
"Once the water hits the Fraser River from the Chilcotin River, it'll go where it can," Pinchbeck said. "If there's enough water coming down, it will go upstream and also it will eventually flow downstream."
A third evacuation order covers 1.5 square kilometres along the Fraser River, about 25 kilometres south of where the two rivers meet. It in‐ cludes the Gang Ranch Sus‐ pension Bridge.
Evacuation orders also re‐ main in place for about 100 square kilometres of land along the Chilcotin River, both upstream and down‐ stream from where the land‐ slide happened near Farwell Canyon.
In total, evacuation orders stretch from near Hanceville, B.C., to where the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers meet.
Several jurisdictions also issued evacuation alerts, which ask residents to prepare for an evacuation at short notice.
Just after noon on Mon‐ day, the Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued an evacuation alert for all pri‐ vate properties within 300 metres of either side of the Fraser River, including four properties it listed in the Big Bar area.
The regional district posted a map of the evacua‐ tion alert area online.
The Cariboo Regional Dis‐ trict has an online interactive map showing an evacuation alert along either side of the Fraser River within its juris‐ diction.
B.C.'s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Steward‐ ship could not be immedi‐ ately reached for comment.
In a news release Sunday, the ministry said peak flows along the Chilcotin River could be more than 10 times greater than typical levels af‐ ter the spring melt.
It estimates the river could rise by 21 metres at the Farwell Canyon bridge, close to the site of the landslide, about 285 kilometres north of Vancouver. Peak flow could take up to 13 hours to reach Lillooet.
In a post to social media, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen confirmed wa‐ ter has moved past the land‐ slide.
The landslide was first re‐ ported by residents near Far‐ well Canyon last Wednesday morning. The slide created a dam about 30 metres high, 600 metres wide and a kilo‐ metre long.
Since then, officials have warned that water would eventually spill over the dam.
The Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Steward‐ ship told reporters on Sun‐ day that risks to public safety include the potential for fur‐ ther landslides upstream of the natural dam and down‐ stream of the dam once wa‐ ter begins to flow past it.
On Sunday the province launched a new Chilcotin Riv‐ er landslide information por‐ tal to share the latest infor‐ mation about the slide with the public.
According to the province's latest update, staff that were previously studying the landslide have been moved a safe distance away, where they continue to ass‐ ess the area.
They expect an increased risk of landslides about 16 kilometres upstream of the landslide, and have already seen some smaller ones.