Abbotsford will soon be equipped with more detection tools to help during flooding events.
The city’s application for a high-water monitoring system for the Matsqui and Sumas Prairie areas has been approved under the province’s Community Emergency Preparedness Fund, for a total of $150,000.
A staff report to council from March explains what that system will look like, and how it can help in the future.
“To support operational response to extreme weather events the city would like to purchase and install up to 20 cameras and five additional water level sensors,” the report explained. “The cameras and sensors will be in the Matsqui and Sumas Prairies at strategic locations that will be identified if the grant funding if approved, but will generally be along dikes and major creeks and streams.”
The system will support staff with real-time data during extreme weather events, the report said.
An Abbotsford city representative said they are “grateful to the province for providing us with this funding” and that ultimately it will help enhance remote monitoring capabilities.
The program to provide emergency preparedness funding was launched by the Union of BC Municipalities to enhance resiliency of local governments, First Nations and communities. Specifically, the funding is coming from a stream called Disaster Risk Reduction-Climate Adaptation. In total, the province is granting more than $44 million to 70 projects across 63 communities.
The City of Abbotsford is still recovering from the 2021 atmospheric river and flood event, and in recent years these extreme weather events are occurring more frequently,” the staff report from March stated. “The latest November 2021 event resulted in devastation to homes, farms, businesses, provincial and federal infrastructure as well as dike failure and environmental damage on both the Matsqui and Sumas Prairies.”
There were several types of projects approved in this round of funding, ranging from risk mapping, assessments and planning, to equipment purchases such as Abbotsford’s, to delivering community education and small-scale structural projects.
Sema:th First Nation was approved for a disaster resiliency planning project, for a total of $109,340. No further information was given on that project.
Some of the projects around the province have price tags up to $2 million, such as Boundary Bay dike improvements, and eastern foreshore improvement in Gibsons.
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