The provincial government responded effectively to the severe flooding in B.C.’s Thompson Okanagan last spring, despite understaffing and problems with training in the organizations that forecast river flows and manage water levels at several dams, an independent review has found.
The report, published on Wednesday, was ordered by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations to see what could have been done differently to reduce damage after a wetter-than-average spring combined with extremely heavy snowpacks to force thousands from their homes in the region.
Report author Associated Environmental Consultants Inc. stated that the provincial River Forecast Centre needs at least six people predicting the severity of flooding across the province, noting that B.C. had only four forecasters compared to Alberta’s eight and Manitoba’s 10.
“Despite having higher climatic and hydrologic variability compared with the other provinces, B.C. has among the fewest numbers of forecasters on staff of any province. Only Saskatchewan has fewer forecasting staff,” the report noted.
Record high-water flows into Okanagan and Nicola Lakes, as well as above-average flows into Kalamalka Lake, caused widespread flooding that forced more than 2,500 people from their homes, and threatened thousands more with evacuation alerts.
The provincial response to the flooding was adequate, the report noted, but there is poor organizational resiliency at the agencies in charge of regulating the flow of water through dams at lakes in the region. For example, the former manager of the Nicola Lake Dam had to come out of retirement to manage the facility during last flood season because his replacement had gone on maternity leave, the report stated.
“While this was a good outcome for 2017, it highlights a lack of resilience to normal and predictable staff movements (e.g. retirements and maternity leaves) that occur within organizations,” the report stated.
The report had 65 recommendations for the province, including that the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations implement a better training and mentoring program for junior staff and create a succession plan so that similar situations don’t arise.
A spokesperson from the ministry says it has already started implementing some of the recommendations and is developing a plan to address the remaining findings to mitigate the risk of future problems. For example, the spokesperson said, another hydrologist has already been hired at the provincial forecast centre and the ministry is focusing on staff recruitment, retention and training.
On Wednesday, Natural Resource Operations Minister Doug Donaldson said making changes recommended by the report will be a priority.
“When B.C. communities are impacted by flooding or wildfires, we have a responsibility to make sure we are doing all we can to keep residents safe,” he said in a news release. “Last spring’s flooding in the Thompson Okanagan was quickly followed by an unprecedented wildfire season throughout the province.”
In December, the province hired a former Liberal cabinet minister and an Indigenous leader to lead a separate independent review of B.C.’s response to last year’s wildfire and flood disasters. This report is due in April and is expected to include recommendations to enhance government response strategies in time for this year’s flood and wildfire season.
The review will be the first major examination of response programs since 2003, when about 2,500 fires destroyed more than 300 homes and businesses.
Evacuation orders last summer affected more than 65,000 people and firefighting costs topped $564-million. Most of the central Interior city of Williams Lake was evacuated for nearly two weeks in July when a fire threatened it.
The province declared a state of emergency in July because of the fires that lasted 10 weeks, the longest in B.C.’s history.
With a report from The Canadian Press
Mike Hager