{"id":11907,"date":"2025-11-23T01:20:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T04:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/23\/four-years-after-catastrophic-floods-abbotsford-b-c-is-nearing-end-of-recovery-work\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T01:20:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T04:20:39","slug":"four-years-after-catastrophic-floods-abbotsford-b-c-is-nearing-end-of-recovery-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/23\/four-years-after-catastrophic-floods-abbotsford-b-c-is-nearing-end-of-recovery-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Four years after catastrophic floods, Abbotsford, B.C., is nearing end of recovery work"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>British ColumbiaAfter a historic flood devastated the city, Abbotsford\u2019s mayor says the the recovery work is almost complete. But, he says it\u2019s still not ready for the next big flood.Abbotsford\u2019s mayor says hundreds of recovery projects complete, but city not yet flood-proofKier Junos  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Nov 22, 2025 10:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 8 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.A barn on a farm is pictured surrounded by floodwater in the Sumas Prairie flood zone in Abbotsford, British Columbia on November 29, 2021.  (Ben Nelms\/CBC)Four years after a historic flood devastated Abbotsford, B.C., the city\u2019s mayor says the bulk of the flood recovery work is complete.In 2021, extremely heavy rain \u2014 an atmospheric river \u2014 led to the Nooksack River overflowing in Washington state. The floodwater broke dikes, flowed north and drowned the Sumas Prairie, the throne of Abbotsford\u2019s agriculture and a major economic driver for the city.Mayor Ross Siemens said the city had marked 300 flood recovery projects, and the majority of them are finished. This has included repairs to landslide sites, the stabilization of the Sumas River bank, building the first phase of a new flood wall at a critical pump station and removing debris from several waterways. \u201cWe\u2019ve got four that are in play, that still need to be done. But we\u2019re coming close to the end of the recovery process,\u201d Siemens said.He said the reasons the work has taken so long includes factors like permitting times and approvals, limited construction windows to protect fish habitats and high costs.\u201cIt\u2019s not cheap infrastructure to repair,\u201d he said.Residents in Abbotsford\u2019s Arnold neighbourhood near the U.S. border were among those who evacuated their homes during the 2021 floods. (Kier Junos)Residents in the Arnold neighbourhood, located on the southern part of the Sumas Prairie, said the night they evacuated their homes was unforgettable and traumatic. With so many roads flooded, it was difficult to get out.\u201cWe never thought of a flood being like that,\u201d said Albert Brechin, who lives with his wife Rose in a tall house built atop concrete blocks. Their house, built high above the ground in 2017, survived the flood, but many other homes did not.Albert and Rose Brechin sit in the kitchen of their raised home in Abbotsford\u2019s Arnold neighbourhood on Nov. 17, 2025. (Kier Junos)At the time of the flood, George Pedersen was living with his family in a relatively new home, raised 7.5 metres above sea level \u2014 just down the road from the Brechins.\u201cWe went through the flood, basically got eight feet of water, [it] took out the shop, the house that we were in,\u201d he said.After the flood, they had to completely rebuild. Their new house stands 9.3 metres above sea level.\u201cWe went even higher to make sure that we never have a problem,\u201d he said.To live in homes set so high about the ground is somewhat comical, said Rose Brechin. \u201cWe make fun, those of us that live in these high houses, that we can wave to each other \u2014 like, \u2018There\u2019s the white house, they\u2019re way above the trees,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cSo it does look awkward. But it\u2019s definitely what you need in this neighbourhood.\u201dThe Pedersens rebuilt their home in Abbotsford\u2019s Arnold neighbourhood higher above the ground after the 2021 floods. (Kier Junos)A top priority for Washington stateSouth of the border, Tom Buroker, director for the Washington state department of ecology, said the state has improved emergency communications with Abbotsford and the province.It has also put a lot of work into understanding the science of flooding, he said. This includes improving modeling and mapping to mitigate the impacts of floods on new infrastructure.Whatcom County is considering levee setbacks on the Nooksack River, Buroker added, likening the idea to widening a bathtub.\u201cIt\u2019s the same effect as raising a dike,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd by setting back a dike further away from the river, you increase the capacity of the river and reduce the chance of flooding.\u201d He said there is no timeline on the project yet, but the state has \u201ccommitted $4 million every two years to this planning process,\u201d and it\u2019s their \u201chighest priority project.\u201dNot ready for the next big floodSiemens says Abbotsford is still not ready for the next big flood, particularly if it were to cut off Highway 1 in the Sumas Prairie again.Upgrades to that highway are on pause until the completion of a multi-governmental flood strategy.Sumas Prairie main flood zone from the closed section of Highway 1 in Abbotsford on Nov. 21, 2021. (Carly Thomas\/CBC)\u201cWe\u2019re a vital link to the rest of the country economically through that corridor, we feed all of the natural gas, the oil \u2014 all of those natural products are coming through there,\u201d Siemens said.\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody at the federal level really fully comprehends how important the Fraser Valley is to the national economy and national security.\u201dGregor Robertson, federal minister of housing and infrastructure, wasn\u2019t available for an interview.In an emailed statement, Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada said a $6 billion fund will support local infrastructure upgrades over the next decade across the country, but it didn\u2019t make any specific promises for Abbotsford.\u201cFurther details, including specific funding commitments, will be available in due course,\u201d it said.ABOUT THE AUTHORKier is an award-winning journalist reporting from CBC\u2019s Fraser Valley bureau in Abbotsford.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British ColumbiaAfter a historic flood devastated the city, Abbotsford\u2019s mayor says the the recovery work is almost complete. But, he says it\u2019s still not ready for the next big flood.Abbotsford\u2019s mayor says hundreds of recovery projects complete, but city not yet flood-proofKier Junos \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Nov 22, 2025 10:00 AM EST | [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,118,1],"tags":[120,116],"class_list":["post-11907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-british-columbia","category-indigenous","category-uncategorized","tag-british-columbia","tag-indigenous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}