Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

HIGH WATER WORRIES

Kamloops preparing early for high water, due to high snowpack and COVID-19 concerns

Apr 16, 2020 | 4:13 PM

KAMLOOPS — We’re still over a month away from river levels hitting their peak in the Thompson Valley. However, on Tuesday, Kamloops City Council heard about near-record snowpack levels, which could spell high water in the coming weeks and months.

River levels in the Thompson Valley are about as low as you’ll see them right now. However, the same can’t be said about snowpack levels in the region. With the weather warming up in the coming days and weeks, the City of Kamloops is preparing for the inevitable high water.

“We are starting to deliver sand and sandbags to places we have in the past as early as today,” City of Kamloops Utilities Services Manager Greg Wightman says. “We’ve got sand and sandbags at the Barnhartvale Community Hall [and] at the BC Wildlife Park very shortly. Residents looking for sand and sandbags, it’s best to go to www.kamloops.ca/flooding.”

The city is ensuring those supplies are ready early for a couple of different reasons. First is snowpack levels. Both the North and South Thompson river basins contain significantly more snow than they usually would this time of year — 117 per cent and 123 per cent, respectively.

“The North and South Thompson [are] averaging at about 120 per cent of normal — (it’s) one of the highest we’ve seen where both [rivers] are high concurrently,” Jonathan Boyd, Hydrologist with the BC River Forecast Centre says. “It’s the highest since 1999.”

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Back in 1999, a good portion of Riverside Park was underwater. Twenty-seven years prior, warm weather and above-average precipitation led to record flooding, the worst the city had seen in almost a century.

“The South Thompson usually peaks around 10 days to two weeks after the North Thompson,” Boyd explains. “The biggest concern is if the North and South Thompson peak at the same time.”

The second challenge the city is facing is a flood alongside the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Simple tasks like filling a sandbag, that in the past has never caused us more than two thoughts is a little bit difficult this year,” Wightman says. “How do you fill a sandbag when you have two people that need to be more than six feet apart?”

That’s why the city is getting started on flood prep earlier than usual.

“If you have been in the situation in the past of needing sandbags around your property, try and get that out quicker,” Wightman suggests. “It’ll be a lot more difficult this year not being able to call on your neighbours and your friends to come to help you.”