The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) lifted all but two evacuation orders Tuesday, as river forecasts for the Boundary indicate that the West Kettle, Kettle and Granby rivers are all past their seasonal peaks.
The BC River Forecast Centre lifted its High Streamflow Advisory for the region on June 8, and Environment Canada forecasted continued cool weather for the coming week, meaning that the threat of flooding has fallen enough to lift all 1,136 alerts, an RDKB release said Tuesday.
“This is great news that our river levels are dropping and that our flood risk is reducing. But it doesn’t mean anyone should rush out to remove their sandbags yet,” RDKB emergency operations centre director Mark Stephens in a statement. “The 2020 freshet is still going on and we know that if we did get extreme amounts of rain, that could raise the flood risk again.”
The two properties that remain on evacuation alert in Grand Forks are on 19th Street. Stephens said that bank erosion along the two properties is the cause for a sustained alert.
Stephens said that though high-elevation snow monitoring stations in the watershed indicate that there is as much as 211 per cent of the average annual snowpack for June, most of the snow in the Boundary has already melted. “Our main risk factors in this freshet are what they’ve always been – how warm it gets and how fast, and how much warm rain we get at any one time, especially on top of that melting snow,” Stephens said.
The RDKB lifted all evacuation orders on June 4.
With the encouraging projections, crews have begun to dismantle flood protection measures in Grand Forks. Stephens said that Tiger dams blocking businesses on Riverside Drive will be prioritized, as will the dirt berm on 68th Avenue. He said that crews were aiming to have everything removed by the end of the week.
Read more: RDKB rescinds all Boundary evacuation orders