Heavy rains wreaked havoc on Fraser Valley farmers

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Harry Sidhu shows the damage that the rain caused to his fields, located in the Sumas prairie.

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A Fraser Valley farmer says his berry fields are flooded after heavy rains in the southwest British Columbia. Further precipitation is expected.

Harry Sidhu, whose family owns a blueberry farm in the Sumas Plain, spends a lot of time observing the sky. He fears upcoming rainfall, as an atmospheric river has already dumped up to 200 mm of rain on the south coast over the weekend, according to the Colombian River Regime Monitoring Center. British.

According to Harry Sidhu, farmers are just recovering from the catastrophic floods of November 2021, which destroyed farms in the Sumas Prairie. It is located in the lower Fraser Valley, about 90 km east of Vancouver.

It&#x27 There are a lot of bad memories, a lot of stress, anxiety, and a lot of other producers feel the same thing, confides the farmer.

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The latter says that x27;we will have to wait until spring to know the extent of the damage that the rain has caused to its production

When fields are underwater… this can cause root problems. They can rot, and the stems can get diseases, he explains. These are problems that may only appear later. We are really in the unknown.

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In the vicinity of Abbotsford, precipitation was significant. Fields are flooded.

The fields of Jaswant Dhillon were submerged by more than half a meter of water on Sunday. He explains that he only planted new berries last year, after his crops were destroyed in 2021.

We are worried about the future, says Jaswant Dhillon.

Although Abbotsford has benefited from a respite On Monday, rain is expected to return and persist over the next few days.

We hope that the consequences will not be catastrophic, wants to believe Armel Castellan, meteorologist at Environment Canada. We do not expect the situation to be similar to 2021.

The River Regime Monitoring Center has issued a flood warning (the highest level of the three levels used by the center) for the Squamish River and its tributaries, including the Cheakamus River, on Monday, as heavy rain is expected on the south coast of the province.

A bulletin from 5:15 p.m. Monday indicates water levels on the Squamish River were rising.

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Some roads near Abbotsford were flooded.

The River Regime Control Center has issued a flood watch (level 2 of 3) for the remainder of the south coast of the province, including the Sunshine Coast, the North Shore Mountains and parts of the valley of the Fraser River, including the Sumas River. All of Vancouver Island is also placed under this alert level.

Lower level flow advisories are in effect for the central and north.

In addition to the predicted precipitation, the very high temperatures for the season are not helping matters.

The warm air mass produces temperatures 5 to 10°C above seasonal temperatures, says Environment Canada. Freezing levels will be between 2000 and 2500 m until mid-week. Freezing levels at high altitudes combined with heavy rains will cause snowmelt to add to the already heavy rainfall.

Harry Sidhu says he constantly this fear of a future flood.

We are still in recovery mode, he breathes. We have yet to recover and relive this… I don't have the words to explain it. It's very difficult.

With reporting from Michelle Gomez and The Canadian Press

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