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BC flood: New order limits the amount of gasoline some people can buy

Deputy Prime Minister Mike Farnworth announced during Friday’s briefing there will be a cap on how much gasoline motorists can buy in Southwest BC over the next 10 to 11 days.

“People in southwestern British Columbia, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast will be limited to 30 liters per gas station visit,” he said. “There will be temporary shortages, but we are taking this important step to maintain a primary supply of gasoline. Under the order, gas stations will have to ensure their gasoline stocks last until May 1. 12 years now.”

Emergency and essential vehicles will still have unrestricted access to gas. The order was issued under the powers of the state of emergency of the province.

The mountain pipeline, which supplies most of the fuel to the Lower Continent, was shut down earlier this week due to flooding.

There is no indication of an oil spill and “every effort is being made to safely restart the pipeline as soon as possible,” the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Farnworth said the province is working to bring in more gasoline by trucks and barges from Alberta as well as some states in the US.

Farnworth will not confirm whether BC is out of gas. He also said police would not patrol the pumps and urged people to understand and cooperate with the restrictions.

BUY PANIC AT PUMPS

Gas stations in Greater Victoria are experiencing supply shortages, with many running low on fuel and having to wait for deliveries, and drivers are not helping by panic buying at the pumps.

After a section of the Malahat highway collapsed, some people appeared to be racing to increase the gas for fear of shortages. Experts say that running on fuel has actually created a fuel shortage.

Eric Gault, chief operating officer of Peninsula Co-op, a food and gas co-op, told CTV News Vancouver Island: “There’s a product. “We just can’t get over the bottleneck at the moment.”

Gault says there’s plenty of fuel on the island, but the problem is that current conditions are making it difficult for trucks to cross Malahat from depots in Chemainus and Nanaimo.

TRAVEL WITHOUT DEVICES FORMULATED

Farnworth issued a second order on Friday, restricting travel on severely affected highways to essential vehicles only.

Limited non-device travel on the following routes: Highway 99 from the Lillooet River Road junction to BC Hydro Seton Lake campground, Highway 3 from the Highway 5 junction in Hope to the west entrance to Princeton and Highway 7 from the junction of Highway 9 in Agassiz to the junction of Highway 1 in Hope.

“There are legitimate and essential reasons for people to go through restricted areas,” he said. “Examples include the commercial transport of goods, the transportation of essential supplies such as food and water, fuel and medical supplies, the transport of livestock and agricultural supplies.”

As more roads are repaired and the backlog of essential travel is cleared, restrictions will ease, Farnworth said.

NO MULTIPLE ORDERS

According to the city’s mayor, the option of demolishing homes to build a large levee in flooded Abbotsford, BC, is no longer up for debate.

“I need to be very clear: The levee option is no longer under consideration and will not be built,” Mayor Henry Braun said in an update Friday.

Instead, the crew will build a temporary replacement dyke to fill an existing one in the hope of preventing floodwaters from overflowing the Sumas Prairie.

Late Thursday, Braun told reporters the city was considering enlisting the help of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel to build a 2.5-kilometer levee along Highway 1, which means that 22 houses will be confiscated and demolished.

A total of 120 CAF members are being deployed to assist Abbotsford.

CONSULTING ON STEAM IN THE SUMMER

A boiling water advisory has also been issued for the Sumas Prairie area.

In an update released Thursday, the City of Abbotsford said water supply would be restored to the existing isolated Sumas Prairie water distribution system.

The city said the water will be put to use “pipe by pipe when the road is accessible and we can confirm that there are no problems.”

The announcement about the boiling water is expected to be made in “several days”.

The city said no other areas of the Abbotsford water system were affected and the water “remains safe to drink.”

MERRITT DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

Officials say work is beginning to assess flood-damaged homes in a BC city, as the province continues to be reeling from a devastating storm on Monday.

In an update Friday, officials in Merritt said “trained inspectors” were being brought into the city to begin a “rapid damage assessment” of directly impacted properties. followed by floods.

Once the assessment is complete, the city says the homes will be tagged with green, yellow or red tags. A process will be in place to allow those with green-tagged homes to return to collect the property and “start repair efforts.”

Crews in Merritt are also conducting a series of inspections and testing of the city’s drinking water system.

For now, the citywide evacuation order is still in place.

CAF BOOK IN THE ROUND

Federal Defense Minister Anita Anand said in the next 30 days “and possibly longer if needed”, the CAF will be in BC to help the province through the current crisis.

“They can evacuate people to safety, help vulnerable, stranded or distressed people, support critical provincial supply chains, investigate the impact of floods to help BC plan relief plans and assist local governments in protecting critical infrastructure,” she said.

Anand said up to 350 staff members are ready to be deployed to BC from Edmonton as part of the immediate response unit.

Two helicopters operated by the CAF are also conducting damage assessments in the area.

Anand said there are “thousands of other members on standby” who are ready to help if needed.

SOME SCHOOL PLAN IMPLEMENTED IN THE NEXT WEEK

Several schools in the province’s Lower Mainland are planning to reopen next week.

In a statement posted to Facebook Thursday night, the Chilliwack School District said it is planning a “full return to school” on Monday.

The school district said it will “communicate information regarding return to school, including possible bus routes, to all families” on Sunday.

“The district understands that closing schools over the past four days has negatively impacted some families in our community,” the post read.

Schools in Chilliwack County remained closed on Friday.

MILK FARM TO CLEAN

Dairy farms in flood-affected areas were also devastated.

Holger Schwichtenberg, president of BC Dairy in Agassiz, BC, told CTV’s Your Morning that, while his farm has not been affected by the storm, he has spent the past several days helping his colleagues and neighbors. me.

“We’ve seen people with farms – their live animals – 60 years of work [now] “He said, ‘And they get an evacuation order, which means you have to leave, you have no other choice. “

He said a lot of the animals from these farms were shipped to the farms in Chilliwack.

However, Schwichtenberg said the animals left behind were in dire need of food and water and would need to be rescued when floodwaters were low enough.

He also said that because trucks could not come to the farm to get milk, many farms had to dump their products.

TRANSPORTATION CANADA EXPAND NOTICE

Transport Canada said a notice to airline employees (NOTAM), issued on Thursday, has been extended.

In a tweet Friday, the agency said NOTAM’s restriction on all aircraft including drones flying lower than 300 meters between Abbotsford Airport and Chilliwack Airport has been extended until midnight PST on November 24th.

The agency is also urging the public to “avoid non-essential travel” to Chilliwack Airport at this time.

US INSURANCE ISSUES

As damage assessments continue to take place across BC, one expert says getting insurance to cover storm flood damage can be difficult for some homeowners.

Jason Thistlethwaite is a professor at the University of Waterloo whose research focuses on the economic impacts of extreme weather and climate change.

He told CTV’s Your Morning he was “concerned” that a lot of the flooding in BC has occurred in areas considered high risk.

“Insurance is generally not available in those areas,” he said.

He said the type of insurance available for the type of damage seen in BC is called “land flood insurance.”

“The first thing I would do is I would look at the fine print of your policy, just to see what coverages are available for that part of the floodplain,” says Thistlethwaite.

He said anyone who may be unsure about their coverage should contact their insurance company.

“Unfortunately,” says Thistlethwaite, there are many high-risk areas in Canada.

“We’re about 10% Canadians [who] live in these areas and don’t have insurance for that type of flooding,” he said. So I’m a bit concerned that we’re going to have some problems over the next few weeks as people reach out to try and understand and potentially find that they’re not covered for the type of damage that has occurred. “

With files from CTV News’s Brendan Strain, Michele Brunoro, Ian Holliday, Sarah Turnbull and Alyse Kotyk

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