Last Friday's (Sept. 23) deluge of rain served as a good practice drill for Squamish, says the district's manager of engineering.
Fifty millimetres of rain fell on the Squamish area on Friday, according to the B.C. River Forecast Centre. The Squamish River near Brackendale was at 1,500 cubic metres per second, officials said.
Local officials had been forewarned of the downpour last Monday, said Brian Barnett, DOS engineering manager. They sent out engineers to check the municipality's dikes and their flap gates - gates that allow the discharge of drainage into the river without permitting a backflow of water. District staff also tested the community's pumping stations, Barnett said.
This past spring, the district upgraded dikes along Squamish River adjacent to Brackendale. The work was more of a precaution in case the river diverted course, he said, noting during the weekend drenching, there were no issues with any of the district's dikes.
"There was no close calls or threats," Barnett said.
District staff did deal with some "local puddles," he said. A tree also fell on The Brick building on Progress Way, but it did not cause any structural damage, Barnett said.
