A landslide threat has prompted an evacuation alert for a mobile home park in B.C.’s Southern Interior.
On Thursday morning, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) issued the alert for Sicamous Creek Mobile Home Park.
On Friday morning, the evacuation alert was still in place.
The regional district said the threat of a landslide near Wiseman Creek in the District of Sicamous is increasing and may pose a risk.
The alert affects only the mobile home park along Highway 97A, and all residences in it, from Unit 1 through 27.
The alert comes less than two months after the CSRD announced that provincial funding had been secured for an early warning system.
Last summer, the Two Mile Road wildfire scorched the area, forcing around 1,000 people from their homes.
An ensuing geotechnical engineering study determined that the slopes above the mobile home park are now unstable, with residents at risk of a debris flood and possibly a debris flow.
The report, which can be read on CSRD website, said post-wildfire debris-flow hazard at Wiseman Creek is very high.
“About a 50 per cent chance exists that such debris flow will occur in the runoff season of 2022 and about a 75 per cent chance that it will occur in the next two years,” reads the report.
“Such event is likely to impact the mobile home park, potentially leading to mobile home destruction and possible loss of life. In the past five years (2016 to 2021), 5 to 6 exceedances of the “likely” critical post-wildfire debris-flow initiation threshold have been recorded.”
In issuing the alert on Thursday, the CSR said “an evacuation alert is a warning about a potential threat to life and/or property. It is intended to give you time to be ready for a possible evacuation. Residents will be given as much advance notice as possible prior to evacuation, however, you may receive limited notice due to changing conditions.”
The report also said, “for the entire record length of the Sicamous climate station (18 years), between 14 and 20 exceedances of the hourly “likely” post-wildfire debris-flow initiation threshold were counted, which equals roughly one per year.”
For more information about the alert, including what residents should do when they’re put on alert, visit the CSRD’s website or PreparedBC.
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