There was a mudslide in Campbell River during the evening of January 17. Two of the apartment buildings along the foreshore, on South Island Highway, had to be evacuated and the residents are still not able to return to their homes. The following day, Wednesday Jan 18, the Strathcona Regional District and city of Campbell River held two press conferences. Cortes Currents attended the virtual conference for reporters who could not go to Campbell River. 

It was too early to answer a great many of our questions. They do not know the quantity of mud and debris involved, or the full impact that the heavy rains had on the hillside behind the condos at 738 and 758 South Island Highway. A great deal more information is required before they can talk about preventative steps that could be taken in the future.

The dialogue that follows was gleaned from the initial presentation and question period that followed. 

Acting City Manager Drew Hadfield provided information about the mudslide. 

Drew Hatfield: “Last night around 7:00 the Campbell River Fire department received an emergency call related to a landslide behind 738 island Highway South. They attended the scene, along with Campbell River RCMP and BC Emergency Services.” 

“While on site, at approximately 7:30 a second slide occurred. At that point in time a call was made to evacuate the residence of both 738 and the adjacent building at 758 South Island Highway. Approximately 30 residents were evacuated from the facility and provided an opportunity to have services offered by the Strathcona Regional District official.”  

“The people evacuated last night were the residents that were onsite at the time of the event. There are possibly additional residents that are impacted, but I don’t have those numbers.”

“Further investigation occurred this morning to determine and look at the issues associated with the slide.” 

“The impact of the mud and the slide material is primarily behind 738 and has impacted the parking structure. The slide originated above 758, but there is no slide material or debris in the back.  Our concern with that is it is  a two-part building. The rear part is the part that we’ve evacuated, because it could be directly impacted should additional slides occur. The front building was not evacuated because it’s out of the risk zone.” 

“We will be looking at the adjacent properties to this as well to ensure that there’s no other impacts.” 

“The site is still closed off to the public and the residents are still evacuated from both that residence (738), as well as the rear residence at 758.” 

“We will be following up with geo-technical evaluations of the slope but our focus is always on making sure that people are safe and we will ensure that the building will not be occupied permanently until that is the case. At this point in time,  we’re unable to let them know as to a return date.” 

SRD Protective Services Coordinator Shaun Koopman oversaw the relief effort. 

Shaun Koopman: “Upon receiving this call from the city, we activated the Baptist Church as a reception center where evacuees can go to start having those basic needs taken care of. We define basic needs as food, clothing, information, and shelter.” 

“So in about the 19 hours since our ESS team got called out, they have had eight hours of reception center evacuation because we opened up another reception center at the Strathcona Gardens today. Putting in about 110 hours so far through about 25 different volunteers. So I raise my hands to these kind folks for putting their lives, children, jobs on hold to come out and assist their community. You’ll notice that I really stress the 110 hours so far, because the city has arranged for temporary entry into 738 for the residents and the Salvation Army has about six volunteers there on site to take care of any emotional support needs of these people as they are undergoing those process.” 

“I’ve got stacks of registration forms there to prove it and would really like to also thank our local suppliers, especially the Above Tide Motel, Superstore, Coach Discovery Inn, and Comfort Inn for really going above and beyond for this.” 

“Many of the displaced people had friends and family that they can stay with.” 

“One of our goals with displacement is to avoid having to open up a group lodging facility, where you have to share a room with a bunch of strangers on a bunch of cots. It’s the worst case scenario, if there’s nowhere else to go, but no one really wants to be there.”  

“We were able to get everybody with a much better roof over their head than a group lodging facility. Most of the people are staying with family and friends. I’d say we have about 10 people staying in hotel rooms.”  

Cortes Currents: Do you have any numbers of people? 

“I can provide only the numbers that have actually registered with the emergency support services, not all people that have been displaced chose to register with us, but we have registered 27 people.”

“If it’s possible to just pump a province wide message in there, our emergency support services response would have run more efficiently if everybody in Campbell River had downloaded our alert mass notification app and subscribed to our alert service. Many folks that came to our reception center this morning were unaware the reception center was activated last night, even though we put that information out on Alertable including to a news release and social media and the traditional vistas.” 

“For those folks in Strathcona Regional District, please get set up with an Alertable account. Please download the app onto your phone.  If you’re listening from somewhere that isn’t in the Strathcona Regional District connect with your local government, find out what their mass notification is, and please get on it.” 

Top image credit: Screenshot of 738 South Island High – courtesy Googlemaps

Top image credit: Screenshot of slide area adapted from Google maps by Roy L Hales

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