Deadly dam disaster: B.C. river safety website launches as lawsuit looms

Metro Vancouver has launched a new safety education initiative for Capilano River Regional Park, encouraging recreationists to be aware in and around the water.

The new website offers safety tips around the river, information on what to do in an emergency, and a little more background on the Capilano River itself.

It also features compelling footage and interviews from North Shore Rescue, which has saved many people from the river’s strong currents, speeds and winding curves before.

“We’re asking the public to stay on the designated trails when they’re visiting the park, and also make sure they look at their surroundings and see a quickly-changing river, speed and the flow of the water,” Daniel Roberge, general manager for Water Services at Metro Vancouver, told Global News.

“What most of those rescues have in common is that there was some rapidly-changing conditions on the river and people got caught.”

1:54 Cleveland Dam flood victims identified

The initiative comes more than two years after one person was killed and another went missing — presumed dead — when the Cleveland Dam’s drum gate opened during maintenance, causing water to flood out into the Capilano River without warning and trapping several visitors.

Many escaped on their own, but four people had to be rescued from the water.

An early review of the October 2020 disaster cited human error related to the programming of the control system for the spillway gate as the “clearest contributing factor.” At the time, Metro Vancouver said it would implement a better public warning system and increase monitoring downstream of the dam to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.

Three Metro Vancouver employees were fired and a six-alarm system was installed in April 2021.

2:09 Couple sues Metro Vancouver over dam discharge

Metro Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Water District are now being sued by a couple impacted by the tragedy.

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A notice of claim dated September 2022 states that Chihiro Nakamura and her husband Mateusz Wiacek were sitting by a rock when the Cleveland Dam’s drum gate opened, and a “wall of water” rushed towards them. Wiacek told his wife to run, but Nakamura slipped on the rocks and didn’t make it to shore, it states.

She climbed onto a tree by the edge of the river while Wiacek tried to reach with a piece of wood from the riverbank. The claim says the river water was too strong and swept the branch away from him, so he ran up the canyon embankment and called 911.

Nakamura states “she thought she was going to die.” She was rescued, but two others were not. Ryan Nickerson was recovered in the aftermath of the flash flood, and the body of his 27-year-old son, Hugh, has not been found.

1:00 Three Metro Vancouver employees fired in Cleveland Dam tragedy

The notice of claim states that as a result of Metro Vancouver’s and the Greater Vancouver Water District’s negligence, Nakamura suffered pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life, income, income-earning opportunity, homemaking abilities, medical care and more.

“They’re still quite fearful around rushing water,” their lawyer Paul Formby said in a Thursday interview. “Even at the beach, they’re still having episodes.

“I think the nightmares are long gone, but it’s just the shock … last year they were camping by a steam, not a huge stream, but they’re in the wilderness camping with others and neither of them could sleep during the night.”

0:42 Metro Vancouver officials say ‘human error’ caused deadly malfunction at Cleveland Dam

None of the plaintiff’s claims have been tested in court. Global News has reached out to Metro Vancouver for comment.

In a Thursday statement, Metro Vancouver CAO Jerry Dobrovolny said the district is committed to enhancing safety in the park. Since October 2020, he added, the district has not only installed alarms, but adopted a new dam safety policy, implemented new dam safety procedures, and reorganized its departments to focus on dam improvement projects as well.

It has also completed studies and hydraulic models of Capilano River to inform future enhancements, transitioned to an emergency notification system for the Cleveland and Seymour Falls dams, and held the largest dam safety drill in its organizational history.

1:25 Witnesses describe fast-moving water that killed one man on Capilano River

Formby said the civil suit is in a holding pattern as new lawyers for Metro Vancouver get up to speed on the case.

“It’s basically in the discovery process,” he said. “As far as we know, liability is not an issue, it’s just basically assessing damages right now.”

Formby called Metro Vancouver’s new website safety campaign “a step in the right direction.”

“I think you’ll see much more in the way of efforts to warn the people than just an ad,” he said.

According to the new safety website, the Capilano River can rise more than five metres in height at various points, with water moving faster than 20 kilometres per hour. The amount of water rushing down the river can also increase to more than 413,000 litres per second.