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Trudeau tours flood-ravaged western Canada

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday visited areas of Canada’s Pacific coast hit by catastrophic floods, warning of further climate mayhem as the region braces for more torrential rains.

“This will not be the last crisis Canadians go through,” Trudeau told a joint news conference with British Columbia’s premier, John Horgan.

Trudeau tours flood-ravaged western Canada
[FILES] A view of flooding in the Sumas Prairie area of Abbotsford British Columbia, Canada, on November 17, 2021. (Photo by Don MacKinnon / AFP)

Heavy rains hit British Columbia in mid-November, causing widespread flooding and mudslides that damaged or destroyed roads and bridges, forced thousands to evacuate their homes and left at least four dead and one missing.

This followed record-high temperatures over the summer that killed more than 500 people in the province, as well as wildfires that destroyed a town.

“Our farms have been flooded, our roads have been washed away and our communities are underwater, and more rain is coming,” he said.

Horgan’s government on Friday ordered sections of three major highways closed ahead of two more major rain storms expected over the coming days.

A second storm is expected to slam the province on Monday.

Earlier, Trudeau, with a local mayor, surveyed aerial images of the flooded Sumas Prairie east of Vancouver, and met with soldiers sandbagging as well as residents affected by the floods.

Officials said this week the province has started barging in fuel from the United States to help ease a gasoline shortage. Sales at the pump in Vancouver, which was isolated by the storm damage, have been rationed.

Both Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways have started moving goods again between Vancouver and the city of Kamloops to the east, according to a port operations update.

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