North Van cleans up after flood

VANCOUVER — As the rain kept falling, boulders started sliding and silt stacked up early Tuesday morning, North Shore homeowner Barbara Brinson relentlessly packed makeshift sand bags and began imagining getting into a new line of work.

“They said, ‘That’s it, we shouldn’t have more water coming.’ You’d start packing up and think, ‘Finally, I can go in and get some rest and get warm.’ And then the deluge would happen again,” said Brinson, who has lived in the area more than 20 years.

“I think I’m going to change careers and I’m going to become some kind of a construction worker. I sure do know how to sling a shovel and push water with a push broom.”

Brinson was among scores of residents awake half the night dealing with torrential rains that caused localized flooding and evacuations in the District of North Vancouver. On Tuesday, the community was cleaning up from the wet weather.

“We all came together. Basically, it was the north side of the street helping the south side. They were fantastic,” Brinson said.

Up to 86 millimetres of rain battered the region over 24 hours as a strong frontal system moved through B.C.’s south coast. Creeks overflowed, inundating streets, houses and some schools in the Lynn Valley area.

Heavy rainfall caused culverts in five different areas to overflow, said District of North Vancouver assistant fire Chief Michael Cairns.

“There’s pretty substantial damage to a lot of houses,” he said. “There was too much water flow. We did try to divert from houses as much as possible.”

All available fire trucks from the district, as well as the City of North Vancouver and District of West Vancouver were called out, with 10 to 15 homes evacuated at one point.

“In a lot of locations there wasn’t a lot we could do,” Cairns said. “Restoration crews will be working hard for quite some time.”

About a dozen students joined their principal and custodial staff about midnight to lift boxes and electrical equipment from the floors of Argyle Secondary School, one of the storm’s greatest casualties.

The school was closed Tuesday. It’s expected to reopen today.

More rain is expected today and Thursday, but not nearly as much.