Police in Coquitlam, B.C., say first responders were searching Sunday for a person who is missing after their home was washed away in a mudslide triggered by torrential rain across British Columbia’s south coast over the weekend.
Coquitlam RCMP say officers responded to a report of the slide along Quarry Road on the east side of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park at about 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
The slide washed away one home, and Cpl. Alexa Hodgins with the Coquitlam detachment says it’s believed it was occupied at the time.
The Mounties say they’re communicating with the homeowner’s family.
The slide has rendered the road impassable, cutting off several other residents who confirmed with emergency personnel that they were sheltering in place.
B.C.’s River Forecast Centre, meanwhile, downgraded flood warnings Sunday for the Coquitlam River and waterways on southwestern Vancouver Island.
Lower-level flood watches cover the southern half of Vancouver Island and the rest of the province’s south coast, including the Sunshine Coast, Metro Vancouver, the Sea to Sky corridor and the Lower Fraser River and its tributaries.
An update from the centre said additional rainfall was expected Sunday night as a “second and final pulse of moist air” moves from the coast to the Interior.
The atmospheric river weather system that lashed B.C.’s south coast on the day of the provincial election sent daily rainfall records tumbling on Saturday.
Environment Canada figures show new daily rainfall records were set in Victoria, Squamish, Vancouver, West Vancouver, White Rock, Langley, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Hope, Nakusp in the Interior, and the Agassiz and Pitt Meadows areas.
West Vancouver saw 134.6 millimetres of rain, smashing the record of 34.8 millimetres set in 1970, and images posted to social media in the city on Saturday showed a surge of brown floodwater flowing down a sloping street.
Environment Canada figures released Sunday afternoon show Coquitlam had seen 233 millimetres of rain since Friday, while West Vancouver had seen 190 millimetres and just over 160 millimetres fell in the Vancouver harbour area.
On Vancouver Island, the weather office said the Kennedy Lake area north of Ucluelet had seen a whopping 317 millimetres of rainfall since Friday.
Environment Canada lifted a rainfall warning for western Vancouver Island, but such bulletins remained in place for the lower Sunshine Coast, Metro Vancouver, the Sea to Sky corridor and parts of the Fraser Valley heading into Sunday evening.
The BC Hydro outage map shows several thousand customers without power across the Lower Mainland, the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island Sunday afternoon, along with several thousand in parts of the southern Interior.
A rainfall warning also covered parts of the West Kootenay and Columbia regions, including a stretch of the Trans Canada Highway between Revelstoke and Golden.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2024.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press