Monday January 23, 2012

City Hall News

Flood Worries Subside For Now

City crews concentrate on clearing hillsides

Released by Starlee Renton, City of Chilliwack

hanks to kind weather and a strong community effort, Chilliwack crews were able to mitigate flooding issues before they became problems over the weekend.

Our Public Works switchboard received many calls from residents wanting to know the location of catch basins near their property in order to help clear them.

Residents helped greatly around the City as many people were seen out with shovels clearing drainage gates on their streets.

"We are so thankful to all those in our City who helped out with efforts to clean up after the wild weather we received," said Mayor Sharon Gaetz. "That demonstrated community spirit of looking after one another, is just one of the many reasons I'm proud to call Chilliwack home."

Drainage stations are nowhere near capacity, ditch water levels are low and free flowing into the Vedder River, which is also low. While more rain is forecast for Tuesday, the amounts are not of concern at this time.

Crews continue to patrol the major watercourses and culverts and are responding to any blockages when they are discovered. All the drainage stations and drainage pumps have been serviced and checked twice daily over the past week and this will continue this week until most of the snow has melted.

With the milder air upon us and forecasted rain, we are waiting for Mother Nature to melt the snow on the side streets. Crews continue to work on the hillsides today, treating frozen and icy roads. Plowing has stopped on the valley floor as most residential streets are mainly covered in compact snow and ice.

Operationally, it is not recommended to plow this material as it would create 'ice boulders' and end up on cleared driveways, sidewalks and catch basins. Our snow plows are not designed to plow frozen snow and ice, and to do so would damage the equipment.

Estimated costs of the storm over the last 10 days is around $550,000.00 but this could fluctuate as we are still compiling the actual final figures.

We also would like to encourage the public to report any unusually high water levels in the ditches to Public Works at 604-793-2810.
 

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