'Frustrating and defeating': More rain in forecast as Abbotsford surveys flood damage

In the end, the best flood models — and hours of gruelling work — couldn’t stop the water.

The sandbags surrounding Matt Dykshoorn’s chicken barns couldn’t save thousands of his birds from drowning.

The consequences of the decision he made to keep his dairy herd at home, instead of shuttling the cows off to higher ground, wouldn’t be known until hours after the floodwater reached his barn doors late Thursday and began to seep inside.

On Friday, his farm surrounded by water, Dykshoorn was waiting for it to recede so cleanup could begin. Two sleepless nights threatened to turn into many more.

Asked how he was feeling, the farmer said the experience was both “frustrating and defeating.”

“We spent the last four years picking up and rebuilding, and now we’re looking at doing it again,” he said. “This makes it really hard to invest back into the farm. You wonder what for? We’re just going to drown again.”

At a news conference Friday morning, Lana Popham, B.C. agriculture minister, said many cows and hogs were relocated from 68 farms in the evacuation zone in Abbotsford on Thursday, but some poultry farms were lost. She didn’t release the numbers to spare farmers who were dealing with trauma.

Kelly Greene, B.C. minister of emergency management, said it will be a challenging week ahead with more rain in the forecast.

With 450 properties still on evacuation order and about 1,700 on evacuation alert, “it’s been 72 hours of tireless work to keep people safe,” she said.

The Nooksack River peaked Thursday afternoon and the water has started to recede, but the basin through the Sumas still needs to drain, said Dave Campbell, head of B.C.’s River Forecast Centre.

“It’s a very slow process. So this is something that really is going to take days to happen,” said Campbell. “Looking ahead into the next phase of things, we are seeing the potential for a stormy week ahead.”

He called the amount of rain on Sunday and Monday concerning, but there is uncertainty about how it will impact flooding.

Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens expressed “profound disappointment” in how the federal government has failed to protect Abbotsford from cross-border flooding.

“Once again, the safety and the well-being of our residents, our farms, our livestock, provincial food security, provincial economy and even our national economy remain unprotected and at risk,” he said. “To say that we are disappointed and frustrated is an understatement.”

Siemens said officials in Washington state need to work with Canada on an international treaty to do more to mitigate flood risk. He also blasted the federal government for not contacting him during this latest crisis.

“We have done everything, including almost standing on our heads, to be noticed and to be heard and again, to be disappointed by our federal government,” he said. “I need that long-term flood mitigation plan to be adopted sooner, as opposed to later.”

Siemens said six months after the 2021 flood, the city realized it needed a pump on Sumas Prairie to push the water through faster.

“That is the primary issue that we need right now. We need to move that water through quicker, so that has a place to go when we have events like this,” he said.

The question lingering in the minds of many in the flood zone Friday seemed to be: How long can we keep doing this?

The water levels at Dykshoorn’s farm on the Sumas Prairie on Friday came within half-a-metre of the 2021 flood level. That flood was on his mind as the farmer had to make the agonizing call to transport his cows or not.

A move can be distressing and hard on a dairy herd, he said. After 2021, when his cows spent several hours standing in water before it receded enough for them to be evacuated, it took about two years for them to fully recover. This time, forecasts said there would be less water. So Dykshoorn decided to move his young stock and keep his dairy herd at home.

The farmer got little sleep as the Nooksack River breached its banks Wednesday night and the water made its slow, but unrelenting crawl from Washington state to the Sumas Prairie, a former lake that was drained to create farmland in the 1920s. The water arrived in Abbotsford midday Thursday, filling fields and threatening about 400 farms and homes.

The water entered Dykshoorn’s barns, but the cows’ sleeping stalls and feed remained dry. The farm’s milking parlour was wet, but still operational.

“It’s just a huge relief,” he said. “The cows are happy and comfortable. It is business as usual in the barn.”

But it will not be business as usual outside the barn for a long time.

Angela Groothof, a hatching egg farmer who runs a farm in the eastern part of the Sumas Prairie, which remained dry, said government must do more if it values food security.

“While I appreciate the government’s support, it’s not near enough,” she said. “We’re still too vulnerable. The infrastructure (to prevent future floods) needs to be built-up.”

For Amanda Thiessen, whose house is near the Whatcom Road freeway interchange, which was closed Thursday night as the water rose, the flooding brings back unpleasant memories.

In 2021, her family was forced to flee but became stranded at the top of the overpass. They spent the night in their camper above the flooded highway. This time, they had more time to pack up their camper and head to higher ground before the road and the highway were eventually submerged.

Thiessen said she installed a driveway camera after the last flood, and she believes her house is dry.

“We’re OK physically,” she said. “We have food and clothes, but the PTSD is real. For myself, having to keep calm so that the kids stay calm … it’s just really tough.”

Avtar Dhillon was also remembering 2021. The owner of Abbotsford Saffron Farm lost his crop, including about $500,000 in seedlings. He didn’t have the money to fix one of the houses on his property after it was flooded and then stripped by looters.

In the four years since then, Dhillon has been able to get his farm running again. His property remained dry Friday. He was off to help a fellow farmer begin to clean up the mess.

gluymes@postmedia.com

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