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City of Kamloops ‘preparing for the worst’ at Campbell Creek

May 8, 2018 | 3:31 PM

KAMLOOPS — The threat of flooding continues to keep the City of Kamloops on alert.

Utility Services Manager Greg Wightman says the biggest concern so far has been Campbell Creek, where water elevations are currently similar to what we saw at this time last year.

“We’re in frequent contact with the province, with all the folks that control the dams that contribute to Campbell Creek,” he says. “Monitoring what’s going on upstream with the creek and we’re hopeful that things are getting to a point where they’re starting to peak here but we’re definitely preparing for the worst.”

Wightman says water continues to rise at a “pretty steady” rate noting in response the city made the decision to go to 24-hour monitoring Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m.

“So, we’ve had staff on site 24/7 monitoring, measuring river levels. We’ve got traffic control in place, we closed the road (Barnhartvale Road) at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night. We have a detour in place and we’ll continue doing that until river levels drop to a point where we’re safe.”

Looking ahead, he’s hoping the worst is over.

“We seem to have been all right at Heffley and Noble Creeks and some of the other smaller creeks. The bigger rivers we’re still probably a month away from that peaking. We are seeing what looks like a bit of a decline after this weekend so we’re hoping to get a little bit of extra room there after the weekend.”

In response to the current situation, Wightman says the city’s Emergency Operations Centre opens tomorrow morning at its public works building on Concordia Way.