UPDATED ON DEC. 1

The Pacific Northwest has begun the painstaking task of assessing damage to infrastructure and implementing repair plans after catastrophic flooding wrecked highways, rail, bridges, and flood dikes near Vancouver and elsewhere in British Columbia and Washington state, and left thousands of people displaced. Officials have now extended a province-wide state of emergency until Dec. 14.

Rob Fleming, B.C. transportation minister,said at a Nov. 26 briefingin Victoria,B.C. that crews were working “non-stop” to repair an estimated 200 highway sites in the province’s Interior and south coastal regions that were damaged or destroyed, issuing requests for proposals for engineering and construction services to rebuild two heavily damaged arteries into Vancouver—Highway 8 and Highway 1—that are part of the Trans-Canada highway system.

11月中旬的记录降雨事件是由大气河触发的，这种现象被描述为深层热带水分的羽毛。加拿大联邦政府机构加拿大环境和气候变化在一周中预测了更多的风暴，该国发布了该国有史以来的第一个“红级警报”。

Noting the unusual rain event following record heat in the Pacific NW, B.C. Premier John Horgan alluded to "the effects of human-caused climate change."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a Nov. 26 visit to the stricken area, said a new cabinet level committee will assist in recovery planning and national disaster response strategy related to climate change, including more resilient infrastructure "that’s going to be able to handle hundred year storms every few years, because that seems to be the pattern we’re on."

特鲁多和其他官员都没有为卑诗省提供成本估算。洪水和恢复。

在洪水高峰期，在该省的某些地区，有8英寸以上的雨水在一天之内掉下来，一方面切断了所有高速公路和铁路通道，并关闭了蓬勃发展的港口。一些高速公路部分重新开放，但with major washoutsand concerns about more damage to vulnerable infrastructure.

Four people are confirmed dead, with one unaccounted for, according to the Canadian Press.

Road washout from mid-November rain deluge in British Columbia leaves rail line barely supported.照片：卑诗省运输和不屈服的部门

“Our transportation infrastructure is crippled,” B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said, according to a Canada Press report. “Getting our roadways and railways back up and in operation is our No. 1 priority. We fully recognize how important it is to reopen road connections from the Lower Mainland to the Interior to get those supply chains moving.”

Vancouver's port terminals stayed open, but are dealing with "significantly disrupted rail and truck movement,” the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority said in a statement,

Repair crews and damage assessment teams face a tough job complicated by the Canadian winter looming, as well as the amount of transportation, energy and water infrastructure in need of triage and restoration.

CoquihallaHighway in British Columbia, a key artery linking to Vancouver, has areas of major damage, with even temporary repairs set to "take months," say province officials.Photo: B.C. Dept of Transportation and Infrastructure:

“It’s unprecedented, the size and scope and the number of sites,” Joe Wrobel, president of JPW Road and Bridge, a highway contractor based in North Okanagan, B.C., former head of the Canadian Construction Association told the Canadian Press, adding that debris removal will be the easiest task. He said he has never seen so many severely damaged roads in need of repair all at once.

Duncan Leitch, a biology professor at the University of British Columbia-Vancouver and city resident, says he was struck by the growing signs of stress as the enormity the provincial transportation destruction sinks in. The only surviving road link leads south along the coast into Washington State.

"The [highways] are completely washed out," he says. "This is years’ worth of work to do. it’s hard to know where they will start."

Replacing wrecked bridges will take the longest, with decisions to be made on whether to relocate them or use a new design,” says Brenda McCabe, professor emerita in civil and mineral engineering at the University of Toronto and president of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.

“什么工程,第一件事is safety,” she says, adding, “if it’s a landslide, is the ground stable?” will be among questions confronting engineers.

One key artery and the province's only four-lane link, the Coquihalla Highway, has numerous areas of heavy damage, with a Ministry of Transportation spokeswoman saying on Nov. 18 that while initial damage assessments are complete, she could not estimate when the highway would be fully restored, acknowledging that “temporary repairs are going to take months.”

女发言人说，工作人员正在准备开始临时修复的现场计划，“工程，采购和建筑专家努力确定将走廊恢复到事件前条件的最佳和最快的方法。”

运输部负责人弗莱明（Fleming）在11月23日说，工程师正在驾驶以评估其几个倒塌的桥梁，另一个造成的桥梁造成的桥梁，另一个造成的地点受损或退化。他在简报中说：“一旦工程人员考虑临时和长期维修，我们将有更多的话要说。”

Cause and Effect

The atmospheric rivers that triggered the catastrophic floods wreaked damage across an area far more extensive than what an earthquake, tornado or even hurricane could have done, says McCabe.

The ferocity and sweeping extent of the storm and flooding, in turn, is likely to generate added attention to the climate change threat posed to infrastructure in Vancouver and beyond. “To cover that amount of space, the area that was impacted, it certainly got everyone’s attention on what is possible,” she says.

Dylan Clark, a senior research associate at the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, says the massive damage caused by the flooding in B.C. is more than just the impact of climate change playing itself out.

He contends it is also results from failure of various levels of government so far to adequately prepare for the challenges ahead. Vancouver issued permits for more than $1 billion in new development from 2017 to 2021 on sites facing serious flood risks, according to a recent study by the institute.

Compounding matters, Canada lags the U.S. in mapping flood zones, he contends.

克拉克说：“加拿大各地的基础设施并没有为气候变化时处于范围的风险而建立。”

The flooding also has forced shutdown since Nov. 14 of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which each day funnels 300,000 barrels of crude oil from Alberta to export terminals on the Pacific coast.

Public Safety Minister Farnsworth said Dec. 1 that the government-owned line is not set to fully operate until mid-December, with gas rationing continuing, although Trans Mountain estimates some limited service by week'e end. The shutdown to date is the longest in the line's 70-year history. A key refinery in Burnaby, B.C. als0 remains shut down.

Restoration crews were undertaking “geotechnical evaluations of slope stability and on-the-ground analysis to determine if there is work required to repair or re-establish protective cover where the pipe has been exposed due to flooding,” Trans Mountain said.

Construction crews working on the pipeline's expansion in areas of B.C. hit hard by flooding, were pitching in with road clearing and providing equipment, projects officials said in a statement.

Work has continued on the expansion project in areas not affected by flooding, Trans Mountain said.

一位保险业分析师预测，不列颠哥伦比亚省南部的洪水将是加拿大最大的自然灾难性保险灾难，他们指出，过去十年中的几次洪水都超过了10亿加元的索赔。

“现在，在风暴首当其冲后，卑诗省和加拿大其他地区之间的贸易和人们的流动变得很清楚，不会很快完全恢复正常。由于全球和国内供应链已经已经存在由于大流行，在巨大的压力下。”Nov. 19 editorial. "The consequences of the B.C. disaster will be felt across Canada."