The B.C. River Forecast Centre issued a flood watch for the Kettle and Moyie rivers and a high stream flow advisory for the Kootenay and Kettle regions today.
Dale Heriot, Grand Forks deputy fire chief, said that Grand Forks Fire Rescue is monitoring the river levels as well as checking data to stay on top of the flooding situation.
“There hasn’t been any major flooding at this point or sandbagging,” Heriot said. “Rivers are holding. They’re supposed to go up a little bit through tomorrow with this rain that happened, but then they’re supposed to drop off a little bit.”
Heriot said that there are some areas where preventative sandbagging has taken place, in areas that traditionally get flooded, but they haven’t done too much sand bagging yet.
He said that the fire department is out doing area patrols and there is no immediate threat at this point.
“There is some groundwater seepage in some of the areas but there’s nothing we can really do about groundwater seepage.” He said. “It’s just one of those things that happens in some of the low areas once the water gets high.”
The longer the water stays high, the more the ground gets saturated with water.
According to the River Forecast Centre, a high stream flow advisory means that river levels are expected to rise or are rising rapidly, but no major flooding is expected. A flood watch means that river levels may approach or exceed the banks of the river and flooding may occur.