Some of you may know that there was a series of massive flooding and landslides in British Columbia Canada back in mid November. A series of heavy rain systems caused massive province wide flooding , and landslides. The entire town of Merrit BC (8000 residents) flooded not only with water but raw sewage from the breached treatment plant. The entire town was evacuated to Kamloops and other cities. The Fraser Valley from Langley to Hope, was underwater. Hundreds of thousands of livestock, poultry, and swine were lost. Penticton flooded, parts of Vancouver Island flooded, and every road into the west coast was destroyed. for scale - BC is massive. You could overlay the entire province onto the western coast of the USA major highways (supply chain) were destroyed. For several weeks there was no movement of supplies / food, fuel . While the food chain has stabilized, we're still on fuel rationing up here (max 30 Litre purchase). Over 600 people were trapped between landslides on the highways. No food, no water, running out of fuel trying to keep warm for over 4 days. Commercial trucks were trapped as well. Eventually they were air evacuated to rescue centres by the 442 Squadron choppers / SAR / CDN Forces. I cannot stress enough how important it is to carry supplies in your vehicle. None of the people trapped had much more than a few snacks and a bottle of water. I cannot stress again how important it is to be prepared when on the road - extra fuel , cases of water, easy to eat high fat / energy foods, fire starting gear, steel pot to boil water, blankets, chlorine tabs (Ef-Chlor) for treating water, flares , headlamp, tools , sleeping bags etc etc. I also cannot stress enough - no matter how prepared you are, no matter how much prepping/weapons/gear/food/fuel/etc you have prepped for...........circumstances change in a couple of seconds....... A lot of people think they can jump into their vehicles and get out of town in these types of SHTF situ's. Well, you may, you may not. Because thousands to hundreds of thousands of others are trying to do the same thing, and without success. Don't count on being able to drive out. But be prepared if you do get out. Realize that even though you got out of your town, you may have abandon your vehicle and set out on foot. Realize that any weapons your carrying WILL be confiscated at checkpoints, or prior to air or boat evac, or if you go to a rescue shelter / disaster triage area. That is the cold hard facts and it happened over the last month here. I personally know a number of people who despite leaving their town early before the floods, had to abandon their prepped / jacked up 4x4's and had to walk , due to roads being gone, impassible terrain from landslides/mudslides/debris flows. Those that abandoned they're fully stocked rigs and were rescued, had their hunting rifles / knives confiscated prior to air evac. Eventually they'll get their gear back. But right now it's gone. You can prep, gear up, train until your blue in the face - it won't matter when the situation changes by the minute. Currently the floodwaters are abating, but the damage is incredible. Two major highways are gone. It will take months to repair / rebuild. The supply chain is backed up onto 2 smaller, older single lane highways, and now we're dealing with massive truck jams, delays due to longer routes and winter is not helping. The Lower Mainland is home to multiple massive ocean ports and supply chains - hundreds of thousands of shipping containers are stuck at the ports unable to be hauled due to lack of available roads out of the Lower Mainland. Rail Lines are heavily damaged as well. Hundreds of thousands of Homes, properties and businesses are destroyed - sewage/manure/floodwater damaged, swept away in floods or landslides. It will take billions of $$ and months if not years to restore. I have loads of pics from the floods / landslides.
Nature is an actual heartless bitch !!! Over the last couple of months we have had flooding (today some of the western suburbs of Sydney are on flood watch) but not to the extent of level of damage there. Up north there have been 100% losses of a number of crops that is just heart breaking. Thankfully there has been very few fatalities, one is too many but it could have been much worse in places.
Probably what has happened here in the most recent events. Almost always people driving into unknown moving water.
One of ONLY TWO major highways in/out of the Fraser Valley / Vancouver area that's open right now. It's an old single lane each direction highway. Not built to handle the thousands of big rigs or civilian traffic that's been diverted from all the other closed (destroyed) highways. Once again the West Coast of BC is cut off from the rest of BC & Canada
These photos are from this afternoon, on the ONLY functioning (yet currently closed) eastbound highway out of western BC's region. Hundreds of millions of people are cut off from the interior of BC and the rest of Canada still. That includes the food/fuel supply chain. you can prep all you want , buy millions of rounds of ammo , fuel, food, but when there is ONLY 5 highways out of the entire western part of the province of BC , and out of those 5 highways - only one road is open (Duffy Lake , north of Whistler) your not going anywhere. Checkpoints, essential vehicles only, etc - the average Joe is not going anywhere unless your walking - and even then.....you may be stopped / prevented from proceeding. These photos are from the only eastbound highway that's open out of western BC - and it's currently closed due to multiple heavy truck accidents, civilian accidents, deep snow / ice.
