One week after floodwaters surged across Abbotsford, B.C.’s Sumas Prairie, one major tourism anchor has reopened, with another set to follow in the coming days.
The Clarion Hotel and Conference Centre and Castle Fun Park along Highway 1 both faced rising water for the second time in four years.
At Castle Fun Park, co-owner Brian Wiebe said staff were watching conditions closely last week.
“You never know how high the water is going to get. We were watching that pretty close, but it did turn into an event and it became all hands on deck,” Wiebe said.
Castle Fun Park flooded during the 2021 storms and has only recovered to operate at 60 per cent capacity ever since.
“In the 2021 flood, the water was up and touching the joists. This entire area was covered for a period of three weeks. Everything had to be thrown out; it was completely destroyed,” Wiebe said while walking through what used to be an underground minigolf course.
Unlike 2021, this time the castle had a fighting chance due to two lines of defence: a new waterproof wall around the building and dedicated crews that stay round the clock to pump out floodwaters.
At times, Wiebe said crews were running as many as 10 to 12 gas-powered trash pumps in addition to electrical pumps at once.
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“It was between 15 to 20,000 gallons per minute being launched out of here just to keep that at bay,” Wiebe said. “Lesson learned is that it will come up very quickly.”
This time, the damage was more contained, though the Under the Sea minigolf course took most of the hit.
Down the street, the Clarion Hotel and Conference Centre was facing its own race against time as floodwaters moved quickly onto the property.
“A lot of panic, a lot of PTSD from 2021 and a lot of trying to save whatever we could here at the hotel, general manager Daniel Laverick said.
“By about nine o’clock, we were under about two and a half feet of water.”
Inside, three Christmas parties were underway, and there were dozens of hotel guests, including evacuees from nearby farmland who had already been displaced once.
“About 200 people in the conference centre, about 50 guest rooms,” Laverick said.
The hotel was forced to shut down for about a week, cancelling events during one of the busiest times of the year.
Laverick estimates roughly $140,000 in lost revenue in seven days.
“We’re very fortunate that it wasn’t the same as 2021, where we were closed for three and a half months; we were able to invite everyone back to work (Thursday),” he said.
Tourism Abbotsford says the faster recovery at both properties reflects stronger preparation, but stresses that business cannot do this alone.
Calls are growing for federal flood mitigation work.
“It’s been devastating. We thought in 2021 we were told it was a once-in-100-year event and that would be it,” executive director Clare Seeley said.
“Here we are, four years later, with some of our big players, like the Clarion Hotel and Castle Fun Park, underwater again.”
Seely says repeated closures affect far more than individual businesses, sending a damaging message beyond the Fraser Valley.
“We have three major transportation nodes here. We have an international airport, we have Highway 1, we have the Sumas border crossing, and two of those three have been closed now twice in four years,” she said.
“That’s the message that is sent out globally, around the world, and that’s not the message that we should be sharing.”
Castle Fun Park plans a phased reopening in the coming days, while continuing repairs and upgrades that began after the 2021 flood.
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