Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Jill Sperling / James Peters

B.C. Flood

City fortifies McArthur Island, prepares for two more weeks of river-watching

Jun 1, 2020 | 5:17 PM

KAMLOOPS — The City of Kamloops has turned its attention to McArthur Island Park as the North and South Thompson Rivers swell.

Work crews are setting out 400 metres of Hesco baskets in the park.

The baskets will be used to create a barrier between the rising waters of the lagoon and river and the infrastructure located on site.

“This park is the next area of concern – not the park itself, but the critical infrastructure,” said Utility Services Maintenance Supervisor Joe Luison. “We have a lift station located on the park, a sanitary, so that’s what we’re trying to protect.”

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Meantime, Dave Campbell with the B.C. River Forecast Centre says Kamloops dodged a weather bullet over the weekend — with the bulls-eye hitting further east in the Kootenays.

“We still saw in that five-to-maybe-20-millimetres-of-rainfall range through the region,” Campbell told CFJC Today. “In the smaller systems, that sort of has worked its way through, and in some of the larger rivers like the North and South Thompson, it’s still working its way through, but it’s less than some of those higher rainfall amounts that we could have seen.”

“For the moment, yeah, things are looking better than what the weekend worst-case outlook was,” he added. “That said, we’re still very much in the peak snowmelt cycle for freshet for the big rivers, so the tributaries for the South Thompson and North Thompson and the main stems themselves.”

The City is expecting the North Thompson to peak by the end of the week and the South Thompson a couple weeks after that, and Campbell agrees.

“We’re still absolutely maintaining that close watch on the Thompson River and the main stem through Kamloops for the next couple of weeks here, at least, while we’re in this elevated flow state.”

The forecast for the upcoming week calls for showers off and on, but for cooler temperatures that would lead to slower alpine snowmelt.

“There’s a bit of showers and rain, so if that wasn’t there, that would be better,” said Campbell. “But I think, generally speaking, when we’re in a bit of a more westerly flow pattern in terms of weather, that tends to be cooler which is advantageous for snowmelt rates. As long as we’re on the dry side, that’s going to be helpful.”