It was a Friday night when Ian Sutherland was forced to pick up a pen and sign the flood evacuation notice.
Eleven months into his term as the mayor of Squamish and Sutherland was faced with one of the most difficult tasks of his lifetime.
Along with council, you are basically ordering people out of their homes, he says.
The District of Squamish had no choice. They were dealing with the flood of the century. In five days, 455 millimetres of rain had fallen, swelling Squamish's three major watercourses Squamish, Elaho and Cheakamus rivers. The murky water had lapped into Paradise Valley, turned the Spiral Trailer Court on Government Road into a pond and seeped through the Chiefview and Harris Road areas. Brackendale was 46 centimetres away from its evacuation orders, Sutherland recalls, and the rushing water came within 55 centimetres of topping the dike at Eagle Run, the eagle viewing area beside the Watershed Grill.
Once the rain stopped, an estimated $40 million worth of damage was recorded throughout the corridor. Approximately 800 people were directly impacted; the North Vancouver Outdoor School in Paradise Valley alone faced $250,000 in needed repairs and some trailers in Spiral Court were left unsalvageable.
But foremost on people's minds was Squamish's dike system. Standing on the dike at Eagle Run, Squamish engineer Frank Baumann watched in astonishment as volcanoes of water erupted in a garden of a property just south of the eagle viewing area. Other patches of the lawn had lifted as a result of water pressure beneath it. These actions, known as piping and boiling, are a sign of erosion caused by the water tunnelling through the dike or swelling inside its foundation.
It can happen in a matter of minutes, Baumann says, noting piping caused the Pemberton dike to collapse in 1984, leaving the town in up to 15 feet of water.
By the time sandbags were being removed, the paper flow had started. Over the following years, District of Squamish councils ordered two major studies on the dikes from engineer consultants Thurber Engineering Limited and Kerr Wood Leidal Associates. What they unearthed wasn't pretty.
At a minimum, 4.7 kilometres of the district's dikes don't meet the province's standard to withstand a one-in-200-year flood level event. Analysis found sections of the dike on Squamish River upstream of the Cheakamus River would only hold back a one-in-75-year flood, while the majority of the system was built to a one-in-150-year standard the level at which the 2003 flood was ranked.
The lower Judd Slough, Eagle Run and the North Yards areas were highlighted as some of the weakest links. Highway 99 and the railway were also pointed out as low spots along the Mamquam River as the two transportation routes dig down into the dikes to allow their passage. The dikes' makeup is also less than desirable. The majority of the mounds are constructed primarily of sand and gravel highly permeable material.
While width and height of portions of the dikes aren't up to par, the Squamish River bed is slowly rising. Standing on the dike that overlooks the confluence of the Mamquam and Squamish rivers, the district's general manager of engineering points out what appears to be a large sandy outcrop at its base. Every year, the runoff from the mountains and valleys carry an estimated 15,000 cubic meters of gravel with it, which is spread along the course of the rivers. The riverbed inches up and, with it, the water level.
We haven't removed gravel in 10 years, Brian Barnett says.
This year, the municipality is set to do just that, starting with this pebbly spit. With the help of a $1.2 million federal-government grant, the district will have a two-week fisheries window to remove 115,000 cubic meters of gravel an estimated 10,000 truckloads.
Gravel at Fisherman's Park has to come out too, Barnett says.
With one of the larger diking systems in B.C., keeping them maintained isn't cheap. Until 2003, the dikes were a provincial responsibility. Now with their care in municipal hands, Squamish will be slapped with a bill estimated between $1.4 and $2.8 million just to fix its weak points.
Last year, council set $900,000 aside for such projects. The current council earmarked approximately $30,000 to root out trees weakening the dike. And early this year, the municipality was handed $442,200 in federal-provincial infrastructure money for flood protection.
The government dollars will go toward upgrades at the Harris Slough Pump Station, the Whittaker Sough Floodbox and a part of the Squamish River dike. The money will also pay for a water-level monitoring station at the Fergie's Bridge crossing of the Cheakamus River.
We haven't even begun dealing with the Cheekye Fan, Barnett says.
The Cheekye Fan is the most studied debris flow hazard in Canada. Formed as a result of a collapse of the western flank of Mount Garibaldi, the volcanic barrier is the only thing holding back Garibaldi Lake. In 1855, a piece of the barrier crumbled, resulting in the outpour of 25 million cubic meters of water, which layered the lower Cheakamus River with two meters of sediment.
In the other direction, the oceanfront needs to be elevated to account for climate change, Barnett adds.
The land mass has to be raised a couple of meters, he says.
Out of all Squamish's infrastructure needs, diking is one of the most prominent, in Barnett's mind. Although the chances of a major flood are rare, a failing diking system carries the greatest consequence, he says.
When the flood hit in 2003, Barnett was working for the resort district in Whistler. He watched boulders the size of cars being pushed downstream by the Cheakamus River's force. Nature is not something you underestimate, he notes.
