West Vancouver flooding raises questions about maintenance practices

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To Marc and Brittany LaTorre, Marr Creek seemed like a nice feature to have running across the yard of their West Vancouver home — until it turned into a raging torrent that sent water gushing through their basement during last Saturday’s atmospheric river storm.

The storm dumped more than 31 cms of rain on West Vancouver’s steep terrain over a 72-hour period, according to the District of West Vancouver, flooding homes along Mathers Avenue, where the LaTorres live, and down 25th Street into Dundarave.

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“There’s like 13 to 16 feet of rubble that came down from somewhere and piled up in our creek bed, and then our house was the low point,” Marc LaTorre said. “And water was pouring into our house.”

Water then flowed “down the hill and took out a lot of properties,” added LaTorre, who was on shift at his job in northern Alberta at the time. His wife was at home with the couple’s toddler and scrambled to get out.

LaTorre said they are thankful for the help the district provided Thursday to get contractors to remove debris and restore the creek bed so it doesn’t flow through their basement anymore, allowing them to focus on cleaning up and sorting out insurance.

However, their neighbours are convinced that inadequate maintenance of Marr Creek around the spot where it runs into a culvert beneath the street contributed to the disaster.

Scott Brown, a retired consultant who lives three houses west of the LaTorre family, said residents on the street have worried for years about that “choke point.”

“The water that came down washed debris into this choke point and the stream immediately breached the banks,” Brown said.

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“And 25th Street became the stream,” he added.

He maintains some of that debris was due to “lack of maintenance on Marr Creek.”

Brown said the district clears brush from around the Marr Creek culvert every three months, but that it is up to residents to collect the debris and set it out with composting waste for pickup, something that isn’t easy for some of his elderly neighbours.

He believes that around 8:30 a.m., debris from the last brush clearing, about three weeks ago, washed into a grate in front of the culvert and restricted its flow. Brown said West Vancouver crews didn’t come by to clear it until hours later.

Troy Vassos, a civil engineer and adjunct professor at the University of B.C.’s engineering school, said events such as this recent storm highlight the importance of routine maintenance when climate change is likely to deal surprises in extreme weather.

Vassos said it is easy for maintenance to be delayed, and that municipalities “just get complacent, and suddenly that big event that hasn’t happened in 10 years, happens.” He suspects an investigation might show that to be the case here.

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Jenn Moller, the district’s director of engineering, however, said the district has flood-control procedures that kick in when a rainstorm of greater than 50 millimetres over 24 hours is forecast, “as was the case for the Oct. 19-20 atmospheric river weather event.”

That includes clearing screens and catch basins, alongside “a robust and proactive approach” to maintenance of storm sewers with programs for assessing the condition of the system, which includes 250 kilometres of pipes, 500 culverts, 5,700 catch basins and 56 kilometres of ditches.

“The increased volume and intensity of the rainfall caused a significant increase in natural debris, including branches and other vegetation, to enter this creek and other waterways,” Moller said in an emailed statement.

West Vancouver Mayor Mark Sager said the district has always had problems with flooding from the many streams that thread through its neighbourhoods, but he wasn’t aware of any flooding on Marr Creek in the past.

“But of course we also got 313 millimetres of rain, (which is) almost three times more than we’ve ever experienced before.”

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“I think the volume of water was just more than anything could handle,” Sager added. “I don’t know. We’re going to obviously get a full report when everybody can dig themselves out, and ensure (we do) whatever we can do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Sager noted district crews were able to keep some of the other streams that have flooded in the past, such as McDonald Creek seven blocks east of Marr Creek, clear.

“On this particular creek, I guess the issue is it comes down quite steep and then it levels off really quickly,” Sager said. “So maybe this has to be culverted, but of course that brings in the provincial government, because they discourage culverting of creeks.”

As of Friday, LaTorre said he had not been able to get an insurance adjuster out to his house, which the family has only been in since last March.

“There was three times the amount of rainfall they’ve ever had, like 300 and something millimetres, so that obviously was the root cause,” LaTorre said.

He said they did add overland flood protection to their insurance policy, but only $100,000 worth.

“We don’t know what to hope for,” LaTorre said. “I mean, we’re hoping that we can save the house, and we’re hoping that the province says that this is a provincial disaster.” That would unlock disaster financial assistance.

In the District of North Vancouver, meanwhile, officials have lifted the mandatory evacuation order for six homes on Panorama Drive in Deep Cove. In a statement, the district said crews have repaired hazards created by the extreme rainfall and restored creek drainage to Indian Arm to its original state.

depenner@postmedia.com

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