HISTORICAL NEWS SEARCH - Government of British Columbia

1 Introduction
Weather is one of the most common topics of conversation. Landslides, snow avalanches and flooding events may
have devastating impacts on property and can result in the loss of human life. A clear understanding of the magnitude and
frequency of landslides, flooding and storm events may help in project planning, emergency planning and risk assessment.
Thus the importance of storms, which create such events, will be of interest to a wide audience ranging from emergency
measure planners and foresters to engineers and historians.
2 Scope
Historical information on weather events and their impacts is scattered throughout many different sources,
including newspapers, technical reports and streamflow records. The intent of this report is to produce a chronological list of
flooding and landslide events in the northern part of British Columbia. The area covered is north of a straight line running
from Bella Bella in the west over Williams Lake and Blue River to the Rocky Mountains in the east. Some weather events
causing fatalities in the adjacent Alaska panhandle have been included in the report.
3 Information reliability
News coverage of extreme storm events and subsequent damage may vary considerably in detail and accuracy.
Although an effort has been made to be as accurate and complete as possible, the chronological list of such events contained
in this report is far from complete. In a report with a time span and geographic area like this, many storm and flood events
will have been missed.
Terminology used to describe mass wasting events often also varies widely in newspaper accounts. No effort has
been made to confirm the correctness of the terms used in the original reports. Also as little as possible was changed in the
original reporting. Eyewitness accounts and many reported cases of “worst flooding on record” are all in quotation marks by
the author. Such information must be taken at face value.
The historical detail contained in this report is strictly raw data without any analysis of the events. Consequently,
this information is only as good as originally reported. Thus all the details and quotations must stand on their own merit,
without benefit of the author’s analysis or comment.
Unless stated otherwise, damage amounts are in dollar values of the time of the
event.
4. Organization of storm events
All damage causing events are organised chronologically starting with the ca. 1820 event and ending with a storm
event on December 18-19, 2006. Some extreme wind and snow storm events have also been included even though they did
not cause flooding or landslide damage.
For information for a specific watercourse or community, refer to Appendix 1 and 2,
respectively. A chronological list of some of the reported fatalities caused by slope failures and snow
avalanches in northern British Columbia can be found in Appendix 3.
5. Community flooding and landslide archive
Personal memories, diaries, newspaper articles all contain valuable information on historical storm and
flood events. Many such events have been recorded while others only remain in the memories of those affected. This local
knowledge may also make this report and thus flood warnings more accurate and help planners in future flood prevention
measures.
Additional information about any missed events can be send to the author’s address at P.O. Box 1000, Whaletown,
BC - V0P 1Z0.
6. Chronological list of flooding and landslide events
Ca. 1820
Event type: Rockslide.
Precipitation: Not applicable.
Source: Morice 1904; Evans (unpublished data) (p. 7).
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