Okanagan Lake is expected to reach its peak within the next few weeks.
“I’ve been telling local governments to prepare for about 343m above sea level, in terms of their planning processes, but I don’t think, based on the current conditions, that we’re going to get there,” said Shaun Reimer, Head of Public Safety and Protection in the Thompson-Okanagan Region with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, A.K.A. ‘The Dam Guy.’
“I do think the lake will continue to rise over the next 10-14 days, but the rate of rise will decrease over that time, until the lake peaks sometime in early June.” Reimer says the rate of rise per day has gone down from over 6cm per day to under 3cm currently. “Very positive, indicative that the tributaries that are feeding Okanagan Lake are dropping. The tributary in-flow to the Okanagan River south of Penticton has also fallen off and this has allowed us to increase our outflows through Okanagan Lake Dam.
While there may be signs of good things to come, there are still a lot of British Columbians evacuated from their homes. “40 evacuation orders affecting just over 700 properties and 68 evacuation alerts affecting about 6500 properties,” according to Chris Duffy, Program Director with Emergency Management BC. “From EMBC’s perspective, we’re cautiously optimistic but maintaining our readiness and advanced planning posture in these next few weeks.”
BC Minister of Agriculture, Lana Popham said, “Disaster Financial Assistance is available for eligible British Columbians who have been affected by flooding that began on May the 7th. We are encouraging all British Columbians to donate to the Canadian Red Cross and we will be matching all donations up to 20 million dollars.”