HISTORICAL NEWS SEARCH - Government of British Columbia

The heavy rains caused two slides on Highway 16 at km 125, about 1 mi. (1.6 km) east of the Shames River
bridge. On December 3, a 40-m long and 4-m deep slide came down, reaching the centre of the highway. It restricted
the traffic to one lane only for 12 hours. On December 4 at 5:20 a.m., a second slide came down at the same location,
closing the highway for nearly four hours and resulting in a short period of one-lane traffic. The progressive, rotational
style soil slope failure covered the entire road surface. The volume of loose material was about 6,300 m 3 . Both
rotational failures were triggered by heavy rainfall in the preceding two days.
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*1) The all-time record was set in November 1956 with 93.0 mm. The 30-year average for November is 131.8 mm,
while the all-time record for rain in November was set in 1969 with 342.9 mm (J. Howe In: The Terrace Review,
November 29, 1989).
May 5, 1990
Event type: Dump spreading failure.
Precipitation: Not applicable.
Source: Evans (unpublished data) (Case History 91).
On May 5, a dump spreading failure at Quintette blocked the Murray River.
May 31- June 7, 1990
Event type: Spring runoff flooding.
Precipitation: Not applicable.
Source: The Prince George Citizen, June 1, 2, 4, 7, 1990; Terrace Review, June 6, 1990; Environment Canada 1991;
Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks files.
During the early part of June, four large areas (Okanagan, Kelowna and Kamloops areas, Prince George, including
Williams Lake and Dawson Creek) experienced flooding.
Overnight May 31-June 1, Paddlewheel Park flooded. Water here had risen about 3-4 ft. (0.9-1.2 m) during
the previous week. The river had risen enough to make the campground nearby the Indian reservation unusable. Both
Cottonwood Island Park and Paddlewheel Park were completely under water.
The City of Prince George sealed the sewage manholes in the Farrell Street area. *1) One Farrell Street
resident saw the floodwater in her basement rise about 9 in. (22.5 cm) in six hours. At 7:30 a.m. on June 2, water
almost reached the basement windows. A number of Farrell Road residents evacuated their homes. According to Berta
Nolin, a Farrell Road resident who remained in her home, the flooding was the “worst she has seen it in the10 years
she has lived alongside the river.” In those 10 years, the unfinished basement had been flooded “two or three times, but
this is by far the worst.”
On June 1 after rising 70 cm in 24 hours, the Fraser River at Prince George reached flood stage with the gauge at
South Fort George reading 9.4 m. The rainy weather caused the rapid snowmelt in the Upper Fraser River basin. *2) Les
Holroyd, spokesman for Alcan, stated that if necessary the company was prepared to hold back flows in the Nechako River
from the Skins Lake spillway.
On June 1, there were already 250,000 sandbags stockpiled in Prince George. On June 2, a flood emergency office
opened in the Government Agent’s office. Several residents in the Foreman Flats were advised to prepare for evacuation. The
Highways Department closed off one loop of the road at Foreman Flats to traffic. The Upper Fraser River Road at Hansard
Bridge was closed off and barricaded and also the Marguerite ferry closed.
On June 2 at 4 p.m., the river peaked at 9.91 m, flooding parks and basements and forcing about a dozen
families out of their homes. *3) On the morning of June 4, the gauge at South Fort George showed the water level there
down to 9.32 m. According to Glen Davidson, Ministry of Environment head of engineering in the region, snowpack
readings taken in the Upper Fraser basin around June 3 showed it 7% above normal for this date.
On June 3, Prince George was hit by flooding. About a dozen families left their homes on Farrell, Hazelton,
and the Inlander streets as well as Landsdowne and Pulp Mill roads as water filled their basements and came close to
covering some outbuildings.
Flood conditions hampered the area’s logging and tree planting operations. Forest Service roads (FSR) in the
Anzak and Carp Lake areas were closed. North Fraser FSR was closed at 17 km and 57 km; Bowron FSR at 12 km;
McGregor-Sande FSR at 9 km; McGregor-Logan FSR at 57 km; Carp FSR at 13.78 km; (The Carp Provincial Park Road
remained open); McGregor-Gleason FSR at 3.5 km and the Chuchinka-Colbourne FSR at 51 km.
Early on June 7, the Fraser River was down to 8.13 m, more than a metre below flood stage. On Farrell Street, the
worst–hit part of South Fort George, evacuated residents returned to their homes. Some homes still had up to a foot of water
in their basements.
The flooding Fraser River damaged the Harris home in the Foreman Flats area near Prince George. The
Foreman Flats area, on the east side of the Fraser River upstream from the Yellowhead Bridge, was hard hit by the
flood, but only one family there was evacuated. In Foreman Flats, a stretch of Foreman Road was flooded cutting access to
six homes. One residence was totally flooded. Because of their location, they were unable to get insurance but were hoping to
get some government compensation for their losses.
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