The TNRD’s Emergency Response Coordinator says there is no concern about flooding in the immediate forecast, but there is always the potential for that to change quickly.

Speaking on The Jeff Andreas Show, Kevin Skrepnek says it’s a high year in terms of snowpack. “Across the board about 112% of what we would normally be at and there is definitely some local concerns there for the North Thompson and the South Thompson Rivers. So, from the TNRD perspective we anticipate and we experience flooding every year, but we do need to use that provincial guidance as best as possible.”

Skrepnek says it will also need to take extra precautions when doing activities like laying sandbags as there are restrictions in place stemming from the pandemic. He says you have to think about how far away people are form each other and use of gloves and trying to avoid transmission through those items.

“If we get into a situation where we’re having to evacuate people, now that is usually more an issue in wildfire season, but it’s certainly a potential in flooding and we’ve seen that in previous years usually in smaller scale evacuations. How do you house those people, how do you support those people when there are concerns around distancing.”

Skrepnek adds that sometimes it would call on the wildfire service to come assist with placing sandbags and you have to think about things like how many people are in a vehicle.

Looking at the short term forecast, he says it bodes well for the district. “Some steady warm weather is ideal. If we have a delayed melt further into May and then all of a sudden a rapid shift to persistent hot weather, we’ve seen in years like 2017 and 2018, that’s when we can have a whole lot of water coming down at once in terms of freshet that snow melt period.”

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