North Vancouver rockslide causes public safety risks and trail closures

WATCH: In North Vancouver people living along the Seymour River are keeping a wary eye on the rising water. Catherine Urquhart reports.

UPDATE: Although the conditions in the Seymour River and at the rockslide are stable, pooling of water behind the partial blockage has caused flooding of trails and areas next to the river, which has created potential risks to public safety and resulted in several trail closures.

According to officials, the area around Twin Bridge presents significant danger to people using trails in the area. Public access to potentially hazardous areas remains closed. Hikers and visitors to the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve are strongly urged to respect the closures.

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This week’s forecast is calling for heavy rains, and that is raising concerns about the stability of hills near Riverside Drive following a rockslide into the Seymour River that closed several trails in North Vancouver Sunday.

READ MORE: Big storm hitting B.C.’s South Coast, heavy downpours expected

Engineers continue to assess the situation as water levels appear to have gone down, but are still higher than they were before the slide.

Residents have been told there is no immediate threat to homes.  According to Bill Morrell of Metro Vancouver, some adjustments have been made with Seymour Dam.

WATCH: A rockslide in North Vancouver partially blocking Seymour River happened on Sunday. Elaine Yong reports.

“By lowering it a little bit, we did create some room for some rainfall, but there isn’t enough room to accommodate all the rain we’re expecting,” says Morrell.

“The flow from the dam and the reservoir will increase and levels in the river will rise. But that happens all the time anyway. The rock fall has changed the flow of the river to a degree and there is some water pooling in behind. But there is still room for water to make its way past the blockage and there’s no anticipation that the very large rocks that are in the middle of the river will move as a result of any additional flows in the river.”

On Sunday morning, a  good portion of a nearby hillside crumbled into the water, partially blocking the river and causing water levels to rise.

“The bridge that crosses up there, the water is just scraping where the bridge base is,” said Michael Piper, who was cycling in the area Sunday morning. “It looks more like a lake than a river.”

Fellow cyclist Eric Fry said the water appeared “20 feet deeper than it was before.”

SFU Earth Sciences Professor Brent Ward says the area has had landslides in the past, most notably a 2005 slide that destroyed a house on Berkley Avenue and killed Eliza Kuttner, an instructor at Capilano College.

The threat of another tragic landslide seems to be low at the moment, but Ward cautions that could change with the weather.

“We’re coming into another week of increased rain. If we’ve already had one landslide, there is the potential to have more in this area.”