The rolling wave of storms of last week through Prince Rupert clearly left a lasting memory for residents of the community, with City Council gaining an update on some of the damage as part of the Monday Council session, that following a request from Councillor Nick Adey for a review of just what the City had faced from the twin Pacific fronts.
The City's Operations Director Richard Pucci provided for the tale of carnage, noting of a number of areas that the city has had to address, those included:
The Lester Centre suffered flooding on Monday and Tuesday night, with water pumped out and an assessment currently underway towards ensuring a similar situation does not take place in the future.
The Golf Course suffered some infrastructure damage to the bridges on the course, they are currently being replaced with work required on one of the structures for certain.
There was a landslide on Wantage Road across from the Hatchery and the road has been closed, consultation is underway to address the slide and the public is urged to avoid that area.
There was some road flooding in some areas, with the public asked to lend a hand in their neighbourhoods by clearing drains on their streets.
The Industrial Site on the city's east side saw some significant flooding in the Mishaw road area, more ditching will be required in that area to address that situation.
The wastewater treatment facility suffered some flooding, but the City was able to catch it and make sure that no releases of untreated material took place.
There was flooding on the pathways of McClymont Park which will require some remediation of the area.
Bob's on the Rocks suffered some flooding as well, there were tree issues reported behind the Crow's Nest along Park Avenue, and the City will be doing some selected tree clearing
As well, there were several homes in the community that suffered some minor flooding issues that they will handle through their personal insurance.
"At this point we're still assessing all the damage and we are putting together costs for repairing, so I can prepare those and have something for Council as to what we envision that to look like. And then also we'll look to upgrades in the 2022 budget, or what we can do with the current budget to look towards the rainy season and try and get the water moving a little bit quicker in certain areas"
You can review his catalogue of what took place and what's still on the To Do list from the City's Video Archive, starting at the 2 hour 46 minute mark.
For more notes on Monday's Council Session see our archive page here.
A look at the city's infrastructure themes is available here.
The recurring conversation around town is that the weather has worsened and has become more intense over the past several years. August last year, September this year.
ReplyDeleteI would urge our council to reach out to Taylor Bachrach's office or other Federal contacts and ask if there are any additional climate related infrastructure grants the city can apply for and how quickly that funding can be released.
I would also have a discussion on climate change zones in Canada, how can we tell if Prince Rupert is in one and if that can help in expediting grant funds.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/climate-risks-1.6196450
I will commend council for applying to a grant to improve the retaining walls on Hays Creek, unfortunately this weather event arrived before that work could get started.
Our infrastructure, to put it politely is antiquated. We have seen exponential industry investment in our riding over the past decade. All on the back of that antiquated civic infrastructure.
With the growing intensity of the recent weather events in our city. We need to expedite the improvement of our aging infrastructure in order to make it more resilient and to aid in population retention and recruitment to our region.