[HN Gopher] There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver...
___________________________________________________________________
There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest
of Canada
Author : actually_a_dog
Score : 498 points
Date : 2021-11-16 17:04 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kelownanow.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kelownanow.com)
| anonymousisme wrote:
| The ferries are still running.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They'll be maxed out capacity wise almost immediately, compared
| to a working four lane road ferries have extremely small
| capacity. But better something than nothing.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| But there are multiple BC Ferries travel advisories in effect.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| Here's an article that gives people a better sense of how severe
| this is. I have lived in Southern BC for 40 years and cannot
| remember there ever being so many simultaneously affected areas
| from rain.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-floods-tu...
|
| And one on the supply chain effects:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bc-floods-rail-impact-1.625...
|
| Some folks in Vancouver are saying they are unaffected... well
| what you really mean is you haven't noticed yet. There will
| absolutely be ripple effects. Even in Victoria we had a general
| "do not drive" advisory yesterday, and good luck getting a
| plumber if you need one this week.
|
| I know city folks who have worked for the BC government in
| emergency management and are now stocking up on essentials...
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Also the Black Press and Glacier Media chains of local BC
| papers (i.e. Burnaby Now, Chilliwack Progress, Tri-Cities News,
| etc.) are carrying a great deal of coverage of the impact on
| their local areas. The people saying that they are unaffected
| are entitled to be as content as they like... for today.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| here is another of footage of road damage.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/coquihalla-t...
|
| I think many people reading this don't realize that there are
| road closures ... and then these.
|
| It's not "you shouldn't drive today" and we have some flaggers
| chewing gum, it's "100s of meters of road no longer exist" kind
| of damage. Do that in enough places at the same time and it
| will be months before roads are back to normal. Enough time for
| severe supply shortages in many places.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Related: https://globalnews.ca/news/2445052/bridge-closure-
| blocks-tra...
|
| In January 2016, the cable-stayed bridge over the Nipigon River
| in northern Ontario that is the only road link between eastern
| and western Canada was closed when it began to buckle at an
| expansion joint.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are quite a few single-points-of-failure on the road from
| Halifax to Vancouver, each of which would cause at least a few
| 100 to maybe even more than 1000 km detours through country
| that really isn't ready to deal with any kind of extra traffic.
| Especially North of Sault ste. Marie all the way to Thunder bay
| and between Vancouver and Calgary.
|
| Any problem there and you're going to be driving 100's of km on
| logging roads, unpaved, no facilities (gas, food).
| 99_00 wrote:
| Will this be a significant impact to most people living in
| Vancouver?
|
| All land freight can come from the US. COVID doesn't affect this.
|
| International freight will come through port.
|
| Agricultural communities just outside of greater Vancouver are
| cut off from each other. Canada restricts milk products and eggs,
| so I expect these will run out. What else do people in Vancouver
| relay on from the Fraser Valley? Toilet paper?
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| As of a few seconds ago, this is the best route Google Maps can
| find to go from Vancouver to Kelowna: https://archive.md/we9X5
|
| You have to go pretty far into the US on this route.
|
| Edit: Incidentally, asking for directions from Vancouver to
| Edmonton currently causes Google Maps to fail and give you a
| route that's closed: https://archive.md/7lLu4
| foofoo55 wrote:
| One could also take the ferry to Vancouver Island, drive north
| to Port Hardy, take another ferry to Prince Rupert, then drive
| on a highway that isn't actually washed out.
|
| Or just fly. Airports are fine.
| brewdad wrote:
| I think the issue is less to do with commuters or people who
| would like to get to Calgary and more the fact that trucks
| won't be able to move in and out of the city for a while. A
| messy supply chain just got messier.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Back to the historical norm! Until the Trans-Canada Highway,
| automobiles from BC had to enter the US to travel to eastern
| Canada. (<https://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/3rsv0k/til_th
| at_unti...>)
| myohmy wrote:
| Yeah we used to take the rail. Which is currently washed out.
| Which technically means BC can secede from confederation.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| If someone is actually planning to drive a route like that, be
| absolutely sure to check the conditions of the mountain passes
| in the US that you will cross. The linked route has you going
| over highway 2 and steven's pass, which right now is projected
| to get a ton of snow: https://wsdot.com/travel/real-
| time/mountainpasses/Stevens Typically travel over these passes
| requires snow chains in your car, and at times they can be
| entirely shut until snow removal can occur.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| If the US routes get destroyed, we would have to airdrop food
| soon.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Vancouver has a port. Getting a barge there strikes me as a
| better solution.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Vancouver
| hinkley wrote:
| Did Vancouver have a share in the drought that hit parts of the
| PNW last summer? I wonder if the dry/wet cycle has contributed to
| the instabilities.
| myohmy wrote:
| I wonder this too. Vancouver Island was hit by a drought this
| summer and the (not unusual) torrent caused "water to flow
| where it has never flowed before" according to the road
| engineers.
| hinkley wrote:
| Soil biology does some weird thing to soils in the
| boundaries.
|
| Fungally dominated soils have a greatly increased mineral and
| water availability due to the meddling of the fungi in soil
| chemistry. But if you dry out fungi enough, they become
| hydrophobic, like sphagnum does, and this can increase the
| likelihood of flash flooding. In a forest environment, the
| fungi increase canopy, and the canopy mechanically slows the
| water. Except in deciduous forests in the winter, there is no
| canopy, only mostly-bare branches. Although typically BC and
| northern Washington seem to be overpopulated with conifers so
| that may not apply in this case.
| toss1 wrote:
| That first pic is wild - it looks like the bridge survived, and
| the flood washed away the embankment supporting the road way past
| the edge.
| ttul wrote:
| The other day, I was in Whistler and tried to use Google Maps to
| route back to Vancouver. It wanted me to take logging roads
| through the back country.. roads that are actually deactivated
| and impossible to traverse unless you have a trail bike perhaps.
| That's Canada for you...
| deanCommie wrote:
| While Google does do this all-too-often, last summer I drove
| from Pemberton to the lower mainland over the backroads by
| Lilllooet Lake and Harrison Lake.
|
| I have an AWD Subaru, but other than a couple spots the road
| would have been fine in any FWD sedan.
|
| That's probably not the road you mentioned but nonetheless.
| Jagerbizzle wrote:
| I've had similar things happen to me before because I somehow
| managed to toggle the "avoid highways" setting without
| realizing it.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Bingo. There is literally one way to get from Vancouver to
| Whistler: the Sea to Sky/99. And it's a highway.
|
| There _are_ no other links, which is why even when you choose
| "avoid highways", you still get put on the 99 between
| Squamish and Whistler, since that's literally the only road
| that connects the two. You get put on some alternative
| backroads between Squamish and Vancouver, which are horrible
| to use (it was the only option at times while the 99 was
| being upgraded for the Olympics)
| vl wrote:
| > Bingo. There is literally one way to get from Vancouver
| to Whistler: the Sea to Sky/99.
|
| Figuratively. Technically from Whistler you can go north on
| 99 and then south on 12 and west on 1 and be back at
| Vancouver.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I mean, sure, it's over 3 times longer. Even if you were
| going from Lillooet to Vancouver, no map is going to give
| you 12->1 as the route, it'll tell you to take 99 down.
|
| Plus, that's basically _all_ highways.
| klyrs wrote:
| I'd say "that's Google for you" but really it's whatever
| variant of Dijkstra's algorithm they (and other map services)
| use. If somebody puts the roads on a map, there will be network
| conditions that suggest they might be useful... whether or not
| they actually exist in a usable condition.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've never had Google try to take me anywhere _really_
| ridiculous and I 've played with its routing algorithm in
| places like Death Valley and it does seem to avoid
| "interesting" shortcuts if there's a more reasonable
| alternative.
|
| But once you get below well-traveled paved roads, you
| probably want some local knowledge because there's not a lot
| of mapping data that differentiated between a well-graded,
| good condition dirt road and a potentially seasonal road that
| you probably want high clearance 4WD for (and know how to use
| it).
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I've had Google Maps direct me off a dead-end road into a
| playground... in the middle of Saskatchewan, so it
| definitely has some misses.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I have a suspicion that gmaps infers roads from
| photographs, and some of the roads are not roads at all.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's something called the TIGER database. [1] Of
| course, that needs to be populated and updated somehow
| and Google probably applies various corrections. But
| there are plenty of tracks, especially in the American
| West, where their status as a "road" is somewhat a
| function of weather and opinion.
|
| [1] https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-
| files/time-series...
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> I have a suspicion that gmaps infers roads from
| photographs, and some of the roads are not roads at all.
|
| > There's something called the TIGER database. [1] Of
| course, that needs to be populated and updated somehow
| and Google probably applies various corrections.
|
| That's for the US though, it wouldn't cover Canada
| (though Canada probably has an equivalent).
|
| IIRC, Google actually has a fairly large team of
| cartographers keeping Google Maps up to date. In addition
| to satellite and aerial photographs, and other maps,
| Google also has the benefit of Street View cars to give
| it on-the-ground data plus GPS tracks of customers using
| Google Maps on their phones.
|
| On OpenStreetMap, there's a layer that shows all the GPS
| tracks that its users have uploaded, all superimposed on
| each other (though last I checked it hadn't been updated
| in some time). It's pretty easy to make out real roads
| from that data.
|
| This website has some pretty good essays about Google
| Maps and other mapping services:
| https://www.justinobeirne.com/.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| It is disappointing to see some people thinking this is not a big
| deal. Please don't spread that kind of misinformation.
|
| We had multiple highways closed over southern BC, many roads
| down, power outages, municipalities evacuated, and tons of homes
| flooded in towns and cities all over southern BC. This is
| affecting a hell of a lot more than whether we can get to the
| rest of the country by road. There is almost no one who is not
| impacted. I'm on Vancouver Island and houses are having their
| basements flood, conking out heaters. Meritt is evacuated. The
| Malahat highway was closed. Ferries were cancelled. Various roads
| are GONE. Like - the asphalt is now in a river. Folks are getting
| airlifted out of highways by military copters.
|
| This is unprecedented bad shit here - don't minimize it.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| It's only a handful of months since we were hearing about
| unprecedented 45C+ temperatures and towns burning down in
| minutes
|
| edit: looked it up: peak of 49.6degC (121degF) June 29 2021,
| Lytton, BC. That's Death Valley/Saudi Arabia temps, in a place
| full of trees on a major river, above 50degN.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| Seriously. It hit nearly 50 and then Lytton BURNED DOWN. And
| now Merritt is IN A RIVER. Frankly, it's terrifying for
| people here with any scientific literacy.
| time_to_smile wrote:
| HN has long declared itself an "Everything is Fine" zone.
|
| While you are here it is important to remember that "Everything
| is Fine". Suggesting that things might not be fine is a good
| pathway to being flagged or at least downvoted. Since
| everything is fine, the only motivation you would have for
| suggesting it's not, is to create trouble for political
| reasons, which is clearly against HN guidelines.
|
| It's pretty clear that Everything is Fine because most of us
| have invested our lives on future prosperity. We're working
| hard on tough problems because tomorrow will be far brighter
| than today. The funding our companies receive is based on the
| promise of future economic growth.
|
| If it were some how the case that everything was _not_ fine
| (and again, to be crystal clear, Everything is Fine), then many
| people here would be thrown into a very uncomfortable emotional
| place, since it would call into question nearly all of our
| assumptions about the world that give us meaning. But of course
| we are comfortable, because Everything is Fine.
|
| Are their problems? Of course! Otherwise we wouldn't need
| startups and we wouldn't need VC funding. If you see a problem
| the answer is simple: why not find the solution and pitch it in
| the next YC round?
|
| All problems are just opportunities for startup disruption,
| waiting to be solved. They're exciting! So don't worry too
| much, and most importantly, remember that Everything is Fine.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| on point.
| tehsauce wrote:
| Unless you drive your car onto a ferry!
| blocked_again wrote:
| (deleted)
| asdfsd234234444 wrote:
| lol, salty
| [deleted]
| swader999 wrote:
| Albertans: lets take their land while we can!
| baybal2 wrote:
| Wow, I lived in Canada for almost 6 years, and never knew that
| Canada spends so little on roads.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| To put this in context, the Pacific Northwest and British
| Columbia are being hammered with extremely heavy rain. Roads
| are being washed out or struck with landslides.
|
| Seattle already hit the third-rainiest November in history and
| we're two weeks in.
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/11/15/atmospheri...
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| People really overestimate how resilient infrastructure is to
| natural disasters, and such disasters will become more common as
| the earth warms.
| blondie9x wrote:
| Exactly. As people over consume and the planet's climate
| continues to become more erratic and destabilized
| infrastructure disasters will increase.
| pjkundert wrote:
| Or, rampant incompetence of increasingly all-powerful
| government functionaries paralyzes more and more of our
| nation when random events occur.
|
| The capacity to quickly repair roads exists. Call in a major
| structural steel engineering firm, and give them free reign
| and a big cheque.
|
| You'll have a bridge over the swirling rapids in 24 hours.
|
| Of course, government workers will be falling to the ground
| foaming at the mouth -- but that's just a side-benefit.
| ygjb wrote:
| you might want to loosen that tinfoil hat.
|
| Private sector does really well in a lot of spaces, but
| despite being public infrastructure, most highways and
| roadworks built in Canada _are already built by_ private
| sector employees working under contract.
|
| Those public sector employees foaming at the mouth? Those
| are the ones who are responsible for making sure that the
| roads, highways and infrastructure are fit for purpose,
| including safety. But hey, why would we want anyone
| providing oversight of private corporations right?
|
| You want emergency, purpose built solutions built by a
| mission oriented team? May I point you in the direction of
| the Canadian Military Engineers (you know, government
| workers?).
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| It makes me sad to see the parent comment grey (10:16 AM
| PST). You're absolutely correct that overconsumption is the
| root of the problem.
| Spivak wrote:
| I think it's more nuanced than this. Like you're right that
| reducing consumption/commerce would help but it has trade-
| offs that lots of people don't jive with and isn't really
| the root of the problem which is waste. There is zero issue
| with goods made and distributed using renewables, or goods
| where non-renewables are reclaimed (i.e. metals, glass,
| certain plastics).
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > There is zero issue with goods made and distributed
| using renewables
|
| But how much of the goods we consume fall in that
| category?
| blondie9x wrote:
| The problem is right now governments and enterprise is
| mostly focused on fixing supply side of the climate
| change and sustainability problem. Not enough is being
| done or discussed to reduce demand. Focusing on
| consumption changes is just as important as focusing on
| supply issue IMO.
| 015a wrote:
| More people need to think about their emergency preparedness.
| We're not talking about permanent societal collapse; just a
| week-long collapse of electricity, food supply, water,
| transportation, or other critical goods.
|
| If you live in a cold climate: go buy an indoor safe propane
| heater right now, with a supply of propane. Its not that
| expensive (maybe $100) for the value you will get out of it in
| the coming years. It can single-handedly be the difference
| between being able to hunker down in your home, and having to
| rely on external support that you'll pray is there for you when
| the time comes. A carbon monoxide detector is also good to pair
| with it, to be safe. Blankets as well.
|
| Water is easy, though pretty large volume. Food also isn't as
| hard as it used to be; having a weeks supply of emergency
| rations is fine, but consider: Soylent, Huel, etc. Their powder
| form has a published shelf life of a year, its volumetrically
| dense, nutritionally complete, only requires water to make, and
| tastes pretty good.
|
| CASH. Some way to start fire. Candles. A couple flashlights.
| Batteries (the huge ones made for camping are fantastic, though
| expensive). Two way radios with very long-range are also a
| fantastic investment; imagine its the winter, power & cell
| service is down, and a loved one has to try a local store for
| some supply you forgot.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Canada is a special case: small population, huge area to cover.
| The infrastructure budget in Canada per square kilometer is
| very low.
| earleybird wrote:
| With BC there's a substantial geography component. When a
| highway washes out it's often 100s of km detour. In contrast,
| for substantial portions of Alberta, a highway washout often
| means just a jump over to the next township road . . . which
| are about every mile (cuz those were the units of measure at
| the time they were laid out).
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, there are quite a number of choke points that are
| unavoidable in BC. Alberta is pretty much flat with some
| mild elevation changes and lots of parallel roads. In BC it
| is the opposite, the z-axis dominates everything.
| soperj wrote:
| ... there is the Rockies in Alberta, plus the badlands.
| 99_00 wrote:
| I agree we need to deal with global warming. We also need to
| continue getting better at dealing with disasters. Thankfully,
| so far our ability to deal with natural disasters is outpacing
| the increased frequency.
|
| While Frequency Of Natural Disasters Is Increasing, Related
| Death Tolls Are Actually Decreasing
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimfoerster/2021/10/01/while-fr...
| Arrath wrote:
| Compounded by areas with sparse infrastructure, like B.C. I've
| done the drive from Washington to Alaska twice, and once _the_
| road was washed out somewhere not terribly far north of
| Vancouver, which necessitated a near 1,100 KM detour inland!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I think this event is going to lead to Canada dropping or
| reducing its PCR test requirement for (re-)entry into Canada.
|
| The US is still well connected while Canada has just broken
| itself in 2.
| myohmy wrote:
| Nah, that won't happen. International affairs are handled by
| Ottawa, which is 4000 km away and completely unaffected by this
| crisis.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| Really?
|
| https://twitter.com/peterjontheair/status/146071735654868992.
| ..
| sys_64738 wrote:
| As we say in Maine, you can't get there from here.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The only way to drive between the coast and the rest of Canada
| at this time is through the United States.
|
| Doesn't a large fraction of trans-Canada road traffic transit
| through the US anyway, because it's faster that way?
| pomian wrote:
| Haha! That part of the highway is about 2500 miles, to the
| east.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| Some chopper footage of just how bad the road damage is. This is
| not getting fixed in a long damn time.
|
| https://twitter.com/RobinMonks/status/1460690606410194949
| rubylark wrote:
| A different article[1] I read with a similar headline has this
| claim:
|
| > To leave the Lower Mainland of BC, you would have to use
| Highway 99, Highway 1, or the Coquihalla.
|
| I'm not at all familiar with the area. Are there really only 3
| roads between Vancouver and the rest of Canada without going
| through Washington? That seems like such a low number.
|
| [1] https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/highway-closures-flooding-
| mu...
| jcranmer wrote:
| Depends on how you count.
|
| Vancouver is on the mouth of Fraser River on basically a
| combination of glacial scouring and sandy infill. The coast
| immediately adjacent to Vancouver (and indeed, even somewhat
| inland) is basically your typical fjord system. Thus, Vancouver
| is surrounded by the west by the Salish Sea, and mountains on
| all other sides, asides from the sandy coast that stretches
| south towards Seattle.
|
| Crossing from Vancouver to the Canadian plains requires
| crossing two main mountain ranges--the Pacific range and the
| Rocky Mountains. The main river systems here are oriented
| primarily in a north-south direction, which means they aren't a
| great help in finding water gaps in the mountains. However, the
| next major cities to the east in Canada are Edmonton and
| Calgary, which means any natural highway route is going to want
| to generally veer north out of Vancouver anyways.
|
| There are basically three crossings of the Continental Divide
| worth mentioning in lower British Columbia: Highway 16 (the
| road to Edmonton), Highway 1 (the road to Calgary), and Highway
| 3 (which hugs the border). In the Pacific Range, these dwindle
| down to three highways leaving Vancouver itself, Highway 7 and
| Highway 1 that leave on the north and south banks of the Fraser
| respectively, and Highway 99 that jumps over to the next fjord
| north before making its way inland. Somewhat upstream of
| Vancouver, at Hope, Highway 1 crosses the river and meets up
| with Highway 7 to continue following the Fraser River due
| north, while Highway 5 heads vaguely northeast along the
| Coquihalla, and Highway 3 splits off from Highway 5 shortly
| thereafter to continue primarily east near the border. Between
| the two mountain ranges, the connections of roads is rather
| more complicated, but either way, you're going to filter down
| to the same bottlenecks when crossing one of the mountains.
|
| And all of those roads I described crossing the Pacific Range?
| Every single one of them spend substantial portions of its time
| in a narrow river valley and is currently severed in several
| places because of washouts. However many roads you want to
| count it--they are _all_ cut right now.
| deanCommie wrote:
| It's actually worse than that - it's only Highway 1 and Highway
| 99
|
| Highway 1 splits into the #1, the #5 (The Coquihalla), and the
| #3 after Hope, which is after Abbostsford.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@49.4275117,-121.4567432,10.54z
| ghaff wrote:
| Vancouver is essentially surrounded by a combination of water,
| mountains, and the United States (with more mountains). In
| general, there aren't a lot of routes through mountain ranges.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Open up the google maps of BC and turn on satellite view and
| you'll see why. The whole province is all mountain with the
| only roads snaking through the few river valleys and mountain
| passes.
|
| Big province, but remarkably little actual habitable land.
| int_19h wrote:
| Better yet, switch to the "Terrain" layer, which specifically
| shows elevation:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@48.9495363,-122.5413925,8.33z/d.
| ..
| foofoo55 wrote:
| Yes. Vancouver sits in a little triangle of land in the south-
| west (bottom-left?) corner of Canada, completely surrounded by
| mountains to the north and east. We heavily rely on the highway
| south through the state of Washington.
| dn3500 wrote:
| Could you take the ferry to Prince Rupert and get out that
| way?
| cf100clunk wrote:
| BC Ferries has umpteen travel advisories due to high seas
| during this weather event, so don't count on their
| schedule:
|
| https://www.bcferries.com/
| elihu wrote:
| That's a really long route and the ferries don't carry that
| many people compared to a road.
|
| (I once took a ferry from Prince Rupert to Skidegate on the
| Queen Charlotte islands and back. It was an 800 passenger
| ferry, temporarily replacing a 300 passenger ferry I think
| on the same route which was taken out of service for
| maintenance. The ferry in question was the ill-fated Queen
| of the North, which ran aground on a different route a few
| years later and sank.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Queen_of_the_North
| Maursault wrote:
| Re: MV Queen of the North, a 20 minute ferry ride is
| thrilling. A couple of hours is too long. The QotN route
| was 14 hours?! Terrifying ordinarily, then exponentially
| so on its last voyage.
| mikestew wrote:
| I mean this with no snark at all: go look at a map of BC. For a
| lot of that province, _three_ roads going in and out is luxury,
| must be a big city or something. Go not terribly far north of
| Vancouver, and for a lot of populated areas there is _the_
| road.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I'd expect this to be a bigger problem for Edmonton and Calgary
| than for Vancouver. The former cities now have no road access to
| the port of Vancouver.
| spullara wrote:
| The title of the article is inaccurate and clickbait. You can
| drive to the rest of Canada by going through the US, as is stated
| in the article.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| If you had to go through Mexico to get out of San Diego it
| would still be a really big deal, and would be commonly
| described as "cut off from the rest of the US."
| ortusdux wrote:
| Forks WA is currently completely inaccessible by car. Extensive
| flooding everywhere. All highways and roads are closed.
| Connecting forest service roads have washed out.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I5 around Bellingham was cut off yesterday night, and all the
| highways that ran parallel to it have issues. Right now, south
| bound lanes open only. So you can escape Vancouver, but you
| can't get back in.
| jjulius wrote:
| >So you can escape Vancouver, but you can't get back in.
|
| Yes you can.
|
| >WSDOT said detours would happen on the northbound side at
| exit 242, with drivers getting back on at North Lake Samish
| Drive.
|
| https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/i-5-near-bellingham-
| closed-...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Oh, that's better then.
| qmarchi wrote:
| Yeah, my fiancee's grandparents sent us pictures of the there
| camp being completely flooded.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Forks is famous or its rain, but yesterday was the worst in
| recent memory. Several rivers hit record flood levels.
|
| It's pretty rough. A friend got stuck out there around 9AM
| yesterday. He is use to closures and taking forest road
| detours, but we checked with DOT and DNR and all routes were
| closed. We tried to set him up with a hotel, but most in
| Forks were flooded by noon. I've seen videos of people
| boating down main street.
|
| A friend has a AirBNB out there and the one grocery store in
| town is on high ground, so luckily my stuck friend had a
| comfortable night. We found a trail out, so he parked his
| company truck at the head and is hiking the 4 miles out.
| Another friend should be picking him up in a few minutes.
|
| If their grandparents need any help, let me know and I'll see
| what I can do.
| dave_aiello wrote:
| Lower Mainland Secessionists-- this is your moment!
| beebs93 wrote:
| One of my family members has been stuck just east of Hope,
| British Columbia[1] for almost two days now. There is currently
| no cell service, but luckily they have a Garmin inReach so we can
| communicate via its SMS feature.
|
| For anybody with friends/family in the area, the BC subreddit
| megathread[2] on this is a good starting place to get information
| on evacuations, power outage status, road closures, official
| relevant Twitter accounts, etc.
|
| 1: https://goo.gl/maps/CXcNEUmAx8gpF5CTA
|
| 2:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/qubkc6/flo...
| javajosh wrote:
| That garmin is a cool toy, but pricey ($400 for the device plus
| $50/mo for unlimited text service). What does your family
| member do that they have one? It seems like the kind of thing a
| park ranger would have, or that someone might rent before going
| on a long hike in a remote area.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't have one personally but if I did more solo hiking in
| more remote areas, especially in the Western US I'd probably
| break down and get one. Cell service isn't dependable and I'd
| likely convince myself that it was cheap insurance in the
| grand scheme of things.
|
| Of course, people managed for a very long time without having
| the ability to call for help or check in and they generally
| were OK with that. (And calling for help doesn't mean that
| Superman is going to swoop in and pick you up anyway.) But
| they're probably a reasonable safety aid if you're somewhere
| that doesn't have reliable cell service.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| People also died in the back woods a lot more than they do
| now. There are tons of injuries that go from minor to fatal
| if you don't have timely rescue. A rescue beacon or call
| doesn't guarantee a good outcome, but it drastically
| changes the odds.
| ghaff wrote:
| >People also died in the back woods a lot more than they
| do now.
|
| That certainly could be true although I suspect a lot of
| people are also less prepared/careful today because they
| assume they can just call for help. And then they end up
| with a dead battery, no cell reception, or conditions are
| just such that rescue is delayed.
|
| That said, a cell phone probably should be on your "10
| things to carry" list these days. And I could certainly
| be convinced that an inReach-like things should be too if
| you're regularly off by yourself in areas without a lot
| of people.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Also, more people are in the back woods these days for
| recreational purposes rather than pure necessity, which
| also confounds the numbers. The relationship between
| safety gear and risk taking attitudes seems to be
| relatively complicated, and none of the sources I've read
| have managed to pin down whether or not safety equipment
| reliably produced more risk taking behavior.
|
| Still, if I was in the habit of going further afield than
| your typical day hiker, or lived in a remote area, I
| think a rescue beacon would be a minimum requirement. An
| inReach gives you rescue functionality and GPS, so it's
| kind of a win win.
|
| The rumors of a satellite enabled iPhone might change
| this calculus again. Time will tell on that one.
| int_19h wrote:
| Even for a typical day hikers these things can save
| lives. It's surprisingly common for people to get lost a
| couple hundred yards off the trail, and even remain close
| to the trail even as they wander around all lost. This
| can easily happen on a day hike.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Compared to when? It's not like hiking is some new fad.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Certain recreational activities are in fact new as
| hobbies, at least at scale. Skiing, mountaineering, and
| camping were once things you did out of necessity, not
| for funsies.
|
| For example, our records for recreational skiing stretch
| back basically 300 years. Mountaineering has been done
| practically forever, but as a mass hobby it's also
| basically 250 or so years old. The idea that you'd do it
| for fun rather than as a spiritual quest or to catch a
| lost sheep is a fairly new idea.
|
| Hiking is a bit more debatable. Humans have walked on
| local trails for practical and recreational purposes
| forever. Some European trails are clearly very old, so
| that's hardly new. But I think the idea of _backpacking_
| deep into the woods for fun has exploded in popularity
| over the past century, and certainly got a huge kick in
| the pants with the creation of the national park system.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Well, whether we mean the past century or the basically
| the entire existence of the United States, it's certainly
| much older than the GPS devices we're talking about,
| which was the sort of timeframe I had in mind when I said
| it is not a "fad." If we mean a couple hundred years then
| we could also call driving a car newfangled and faddish.
| ghaff wrote:
| Here is one set of stats showing significant growth in
| hiking from 2006 through 2019:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/191240/participants-
| in-h...
|
| This is consistent with other data I've seen.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > But I think the idea of backpacking deep into the woods
| for fun has exploded in popularity over the past century
|
| Have you heard about Robin Hood? ;D
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| Pre-COVID many outdoor recreational activities as
| measured by stats like national park visits were up.
| (Some others like skiing I believe were down.) But
| without digging up a lot numbers, the parent's basic
| point squares with my understanding.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Backpacking, through-hiking, etc
| prova_modena wrote:
| Pricey, but priceless for someone who is spending even a
| moderate amount of time enjoying the backcountry. In context,
| a typical REI-equipped backpacker is spending $100+ on boots,
| $200+ on a tent, $200+ on a pack, $100+ per piece of high
| quality outerwear, not to mention hundreds or thousands more
| on skis/bikes/climbing gear if they do more than just
| hike/backpack. When you're laying out that amount of cash
| just to go out and do your favorite activity, it makes sense
| and is fairly common to spend an additional $400 for a
| convenient portable distress/backcountry connectivity plan.
| porkloin wrote:
| I live in a very rural area of the US, so I probably have an
| over-representative sample, but mostly folks I know who own
| one (myself included) view it at as an essential piece of
| backcountry safety equipment. If you spend 1 or 2 weekends
| per month in areas without cell signal (even recreationally,
| as is my case), it quickly becomes worthwhile even just as a
| means of emergency communication for people to contact _you_,
| not to mention the ability to call for rescue if you're
| unfortunate enough to have an accident where you need to be
| medivac'd.
| fragmede wrote:
| How many of those people have a PS5 ($400+, depending on
| edition), PS4 ($400 at launch) or some flavor of Xbox ($400
| or so, depending on edition). I have friends who own
| multiple game consoles and don't consider it unrestrained
| opulence that owning a Garmin Inreach supposedly
| represents.
| throaway46546 wrote:
| >PS5 ($400+, depending on edition)
|
| I wish.
| scruple wrote:
| I own one because I backpack and frequently go quite deep in
| the back country (err, at least I used to before having
| children, but I intend to get back out there once they're a
| little bit older).
| stevenwoo wrote:
| There are several areas within 5-10 miles of Apple's
| Cupertino HQ that have no cell service - the nearby mountains
| lead to valleys where I assume it's not economical to install
| cell towers.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was in both Napa and Point Reyes a couple weeks back and
| the AT&T cell reception was pretty hit or miss. Heck, I'm
| about 45 miles west of Boston and the cell reception at my
| house is at least variable.
| mikestew wrote:
| _What does your family member do that they have one?_
|
| Goes on a hike and realizes that a lot of BC doesn't have any
| cell service?
|
| I haven't used mine for an actual emergency, but it did come
| in handy in Yukon with an irreparable motorcycle tire. I
| mostly use it as a backcountry text message device to let the
| spouse know I'm not dead, or just general chat if I have
| messages left. Regardless, "long hike in a remote area"
| defines even a lot of day hikes in WA state, let alone the
| interior of BC. There probably isn't a month that goes by
| that I don't grab mine for one remote adventure or another.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| There are still some of us who have CB radios (with all
| their limitations acknowledged) in our vehicles for back
| country emergency use, and I occasionally see mobile ham
| radio operators. A Garmin inReach seems like it would be a
| good addition.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| CBs are good for the forest service roads so you know
| when logging trucks are coming or going.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| You'll need a special VHF radio for that kind of traffic
| tracking on Forest Service Roads in BC, and there are
| specific usage patterns you must follow:
|
| https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/natural-
| resource...
|
| A CB radio doesn't help much with that, but it is just
| another means of possibly getting contact with others.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Ahhh, I remember it being possible on one of the
| Baofeng's that can do almost anything.
|
| Transmitting may require licensing, but listening should
| be fine.
| vel0city wrote:
| Citizen-Band "CB" is a pretty specific type of AM radio
| limited to a number of defined channels around 27MHz.
|
| Those Baofeng radios are VHF/UHF (140MHz/440MHz) FM
| radios, not "CB". If you had a Baofeng, and your buddy
| had a CB, there is no good way they would be able to
| communicate. These radios can operate in a wide range of
| frequencies with various levels of legality. But yeah in
| the US and Canada its generally legal to receive a
| transmission...other than maybe old cellular phones but
| that's another complicated mess.
| [deleted]
| cf100clunk wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the parent wasn't commenting on tracking
| CB radio, just the FSR VHF traffic I mentioned.
| vel0city wrote:
| I think so as well, but it looks like they had their
| terminology confused. They used the term CB originally,
| then talked about using a Baofeng. I'm just pointing out
| that CB is something very different from VHF FM. Many lay
| people see a radio with a handmike and think "CB".
| cf100clunk wrote:
| That's an excellent point - using the channel maps at the
| site I linked to above, there is nothing to stop someone
| with a scanner keeping informed of FSR traffic.
|
| Just one other point: on an FSR an average person's
| general sense of traffic "right of way" is generally
| wrong and can result in some terrible accidents far from
| help. To wit: the bus crash involving UBC students
| outside Bamfield.
| soperj wrote:
| Pretty sure that was UVic students.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Yes, you are correct.
| beebs93 wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Said family member mentioned in the parent thread keeps a
| handheld radio (I don't know the exact tech specs, sorry)
| for such occasions. That said, they mostly use it to just
| listen for any logging trucks calling out checkpoints so
| they can avoid getting in their way when travelling to
| their remote campsites.
|
| Coupled with a Garmin inReach w/ backcountry maps
| installed, it gives us peace of mind in case something
| goes wrong out in the bush.
| randomfool wrote:
| They're super common now for backcountry hikers and trail
| runners. The plans start at $15 a month on a per-month plan
| (no lock in).
|
| There has been speculation that Apple would build this into
| their phones, which IMHO would be a killer feature. Imagine
| having an emergency feature that could be used anywhere on
| earth. How much would you pay per text? $5 per text message
| would be an absolute bargain in many of these remote
| locations.
| shagie wrote:
| > There has been speculation that Apple would build this
| into their phones
|
| I'm not sure how... the InReach (and similar products) are
| a Iridium satellite communication system that requires a
| bit more heft in the signal (up and down).
|
| When you look at the iridium phones (
| https://www.iridium.com/product-type/satellite-phones/ )
| those aren't small things (look at the antennas).
|
| Then you've got:
|
| > Enhanced Battery Life Up to (4) hours of talk time, (30)
| hours of standby
|
| for a non-smart phone.
|
| I'm not sure how Apple would be able to incorporate a "no
| cell phone tower in sight" system... without also packing
| on the rest of the iridium system and making a much more
| bulky device.
| nickvanw wrote:
| There are a number of providers that have been purporting
| to be on the edge of offering Satellite coverage to
| existing cellphones:
|
| - https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/
|
| - https://lynk.world
|
| The former even inked a partnership with AT&T and
| Vodafone: https://www.lightreading.com/ossbss/vodafone-
| atandt-sign-up-...
|
| It looks like they've even successfully tested it:
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/29/lynk-demos-global-
| satellit...
|
| This would likely be a very high-cost option, but it does
| seem to be possible. The key is that these satellites are
| much closer to earth than Iridium, I guess.
| ghaff wrote:
| When there was speculation before the consensus seemed to
| be it was unlikely for technical reasons.
|
| Also, while sure it would be nice if something were a
| no/low-cost add-on to a regular smartphone, the average
| consumer probably wouldn't pay much extra, much less an
| incremental subscription fee. And there's something to be
| said for a rugged, potentially safety-critical,
| standalone device that's separate from your phone.
| nradov wrote:
| Garmin inReach devices are very small. They only support
| messaging, not voice phone calls, so the antennas are
| short and battery life is pretty good. It could be
| completely possible to integrate that functionality into
| a large smartphone.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| when you're stranded in the tundra and the garmin is your
| only contact to civilization, it's the smartphone that's a
| toy
| nathancahill wrote:
| You can buy them used for cheaper, and pay $15/mo when you
| need it (backpacking trips, etc) and pause the service the
| rest of the time. The preset messages are unlimited across
| all plans.
| beebs93 wrote:
| They frequently go camping with their family in the interior
| of BC so they always have one for emergencies. I agree they
| can be pricey, but it obviously paid for itself just in this
| situation alone :)
| ashtonkem wrote:
| You don't have to be particularly intense to find value in a
| full fledged GPS. We just do a lot of day hikes and a few
| overnighters, and the 64st ($300-400) has been immensely
| valuable. Considering that the inreach eliminates the need
| for a separate rescue beacon, that's a cost and weight
| savings. If you're even more marginally intense than I, one
| of these is less a toy and more a life saving necessity.
|
| Dedicated GPS units are faster, more reliable, and easier to
| keep going in the field than your phone. You'll never have
| them display a blank square because you lost LTE and it
| didn't buffer that map segment. A lot of them will also
| record your hikes for overlay onto Google Earth later, which
| is nice. I personally have a large number of the local hot
| springs recorded into mine, which is very important when
| they're off road and off trail.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's too bad google offline maps only supports driving
| directions.
| int_19h wrote:
| For hiking specifically, OsmAnd is what you'd want
| anyway:
|
| https://osmand.net/
|
| You can download as many offline maps as you want (the
| entire US can fit quite easily on modern phones), you get
| offline pathfinding, and offline maps have elevation
| contour lines and hill shading. The maps themselves are
| also much more detailed compared to Google or Apple when
| it comes to hiking trails.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Most of these smart phone apps are pretty bad at
| providing even driving directions in the back country.
| Plenty of times I've had either Apple or Google fail to
| recognize a forest service road, which I presume is in a
| freely available file somewhere, and tell me to park and
| walk miles to the trailhead. I've learned the hard lesson
| to have a backup plan just for navigating to the
| trailhead, let alone once I'm on the trail.
| ghaff wrote:
| This gets back to whether the road in question is
| something you should direct the average smartphone user
| down given that they'll probably blindly follow the
| instructions. In many cases, the answer is no. If they
| know (or tink they know what they're doing), they can
| make their own decisions.
|
| I'd actually much rather a smartphone routing algorithm
| err on the side of caution in this regard.
| progman32 wrote:
| Not saying dedicated units are not useful, but there are
| local-only mapping applications for smartphones, too.
| OsmAnd is a good example, it uses OpenStreetMap data which
| can be downloaded to local storage (by region). It supports
| local-only driving/walking/transit directions, too.
| luggage_problem wrote:
| I know a decent number of folks in the Washington
| ski/climb/do-things-in-remote-areas scene who have em, though
| more common is the type that doesn't let you sms and doesn't
| have a monthly fee (basically a please help or I'm not
| getting home button). That said most of my friends with
| inreaches don't have the unlimited sms plan, and just budget
| the limited number for check-ins.
| int_19h wrote:
| For pure emergency location beacons, there's an option that
| does not require any monthly fees at all:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-
| Sarsat_Pr...
|
| And yes, it's generally a good idea for anybody hiking in
| areas without cell phone reception - even if it's not
| particularly far out from populated areas! I live in North
| Bend, WA, and it feels like almost every year there's at
| least one hiker lost on one of the popular local trails.
| Sometimes they get lucky:
|
| https://www.kuow.org/stories/this-hiker-survived-9-days-
| with...
|
| https://fox11online.com/news/nation-world/you-go-from-
| hope-t...
|
| And sometimes they don't:
|
| https://livingsnoqualmie.com/search-suspended-russian-
| hiker-...
|
| https://livingsnoqualmie.com/hiker-still-missing-in-
| middle-f...
|
| I mentally shudder every time I go hiking there, and see
| all the people dressed in cotton clothing and wearing
| street shoes (or even flip flops!) as they head towards the
| trail from the trailhead parking lot. Maybe there's
| something about well-maintained trails that promotes a
| false sense of security? Like, it looks neat and well-
| travelled, there's plenty of signage, so what could
| possibly go wrong? And it mostly doesn't - but when it
| does, it can get real bad real quick.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >What does your family member do that they have one?
|
| They live in Canada, at least those parts of it that makes
| this a necessity rather than a luxury.
| emodendroket wrote:
| The Reddit thread seems to be largely given over to speculation
| about the complete collapse of society globally which is, in my
| opinion, getting just a little bit carried away and anyway not
| really informative.
| deanCommie wrote:
| I mean yes, but when your province experiences over a 4 month
| period:
|
| * Record heat wave * Record forest fires * Record rainfall *
| Tornadoes for the first time in history * And now record
| flooding
|
| It's hard not to feel a little apocalyptic.
|
| Especially while most of the people in charge and seemingly
| 60% of the voters still want to hand-wave these away as one-
| offs, and unusual, ignoring the trend or the density of
| unusual/record event.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I think things can get a lot worse without portending "Mad
| Max"-style scenarios.
| beebs93 wrote:
| Yeah, I noticed that a bit, too. I originally meant the
| megathread post itself. I try not to read too many comments
| in such threads on Reddit; regardless of the topic ;)
| jcroll wrote:
| .
| bikesandcode wrote:
| For that route, ultimately you'd need to take Highway 99
| through Lillooet, which is closed between there and Pemberton.
|
| Or cut down to Highway 1 in the Fraser Canyon. Which is closed.
| As you noted, the two more convenient routes, highways 3 and 5
| are closed as well.
|
| And that's it for Canadian land routes into Vancouver. There
| just aren't any additional routes through the mountains.
| imadethis wrote:
| Yes, this is addressed in the article. Highway 99 was closed
| this morning.
| [deleted]
| boborhythm wrote:
| Interestingly, there is a railroad line that goes north from
| Vancouver, through Whistler and Pemberton, but takes a different
| route than Highway 99 to get to Lillooet[1]. The highway (aka The
| Duffey, as it passes Duffey Lake) gains and then loses something
| like 1000m of elevation, whereas the railroad line is much
| flatter and travels along Gates Lake, Anderson Lake, and Seton
| Lake. There are dirt/gravel roads there too, but I'm not sure if
| they are used in the winter.
|
| The railroad route is not used much these days, partly because of
| all the trains that fell into the lake due to how windy (edit:
| that's windy as in lots of turns, not windy as in lots of air
| blowing over it) the track is (e.g. [2]).
|
| 1: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/50.5405/-122.6157
|
| 2: https://www.trailtimes.ca/news/cn-freight-train-derails-
| alon...
| pomian wrote:
| Some of that was closed due to huge forest fire, which also
| caused land slides.
| lepton wrote:
| "tortuous" is the word you're wanting there. :)
| [deleted]
| tra3 wrote:
| The Hurley and the Highline roads typically become snowmobile
| only. I saw on Facebook somewhere that there was a slide on
| highline and that a truck/trailer RV combo jackknifed in the
| middle.
| joemi wrote:
| I wonder if this will affect filming in any serious way. Might be
| too early to tell, but can anyone knowledgeable of the Vancouver
| film industry comment?
| jleyank wrote:
| Port Roberts commandos strike. Canada should investigate which
| Intelligence organs were funding their efforts...
|
| This, of course, means that supplies of bread, milk and cat
| litter have vanished amongst rioting.
| jleyank wrote:
| I admire the sense of geography and humour shown here. Yet
| people prattle on about politics. Hackers smiled when I was
| young.
| foofoo55 wrote:
| Railways to the east are also washed out. [1] And the farm
| country in the cities of Abbotsford and Chilliwack to the east of
| Vancouver, which supplies most of the local dairy & poultry, is
| now either completely flooded or cut off. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.radionl.com/2021/11/15/cn-cp-trains-out-of-
| servi...
|
| [2] https://www.abbynews.com/news/immediate-evacuation-order-
| due...
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Princeton and Merritt are likewise in very dire circumstances.
| lhorie wrote:
| For just a bit of context/anecdata, I'm talking to my brother who
| lives in Vancouver and he wasn't even aware this was a problem.
| The road closure[0] on hwy 1 near Abbotsford/Chilliwack is a good
| one hour drive away from Vancouver core[1]. So while it sounds
| noteworthy for an entire city be technically flooded in, unless
| you were driving to the boonies, you're probably not actually
| impacted in any meaningful way.
|
| He also mentioned the weather cleared since yesterday, so floods
| should start to subside. You can follow the updates here[2]
|
| [0] https://www.drivebc.ca/mobile/pub/events/id/DBC-35180.html
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Vancouver,+BC,+Canada/Abbots...
|
| [2] https://www.drivebc.ca/#listView
| vmception wrote:
| The floods arent the issue the highway washed away
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| csel wrote:
| Son has a hockey tournament next week in Vernon, BC. Due to
| road closure, Google Maps is sending me to Washington State and
| back into Canada. Absolutely wild.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Surrey,+BC/Vernon,+BC/@48.86...
| tehjoker wrote:
| Doesn't this affect deliveries of needed supplies to the city?
| I guess the port and railways are not impacted, but I would
| think roads carry some significant cargo.
| inasio wrote:
| Some (not sure if all) railway tracks were also affected [0].
| There are two tracks that go into Vancouver (CN and CP have
| each their own I believe), not sure if both were affected.
| Keep in mind that the train also works as a pipeline of sorts
| for the Alberta oil, and a ton of coal comes from the eastern
| BC border by train. And on that note, I heard speculation
| that the actual pipelines may have also been affected.
|
| https://twitter.com/TranBC/status/1460391772304064517?ref_sr.
| ..
| rsync wrote:
| "So while it sounds noteworthy for an entire city be
| technically flooded in, unless you were driving to the boonies,
| you're probably not actually impacted in any meaningful way."
|
| Where do truck shipments come into Vancouver from ?
|
| Is it all through the US/CA border ?
| cbhl wrote:
| Isn't Vancouver a port city? I imagine there'd be more truck
| shipments out, eastwards towards the rest of Canada.
| arcticbull wrote:
| They should be able to continue, albeit delayed, via the
| US.
|
| Should be possible to head south into Washington State and
| re-enter Canada at Oroville-Osoyoos.
| rrix2 wrote:
| sure, they just have to hope the north cascades highway
| is open when the snow-levels are already lowering from
| these storms. Usually that highway is closed during the
| winter season
| lhorie wrote:
| I wouldn't worry about shipments _into_ town. Suez was out
| for like a week and the world managed more or less just fine.
| LA port is backlogged to the wazoo but nobody is starving
| because of it. My understanding is that the Vancouver
| situation is only 1-2 days old so far, so there 's probably
| not that much reason for alarm unless damage to every single
| artery turn out to be serious. Worst comes to worst, the US
| road is still open.
| soperj wrote:
| There's already massive waits at the port of Vancouver.
| Some stuff is taking a month just to be unloaded from ships
| waiting, and that was before this.
| jacquesm wrote:
| "The boonies", does that include Calgary? There is quite a bit
| of road traffic between Vancouver and Calgary via Kamloops and
| Banff. Or did you mean just West of the Rockies?
| lhorie wrote:
| Sorry, "boonies" might have been a bit of a callous choice of
| words. Reading more about it, it sounds like the folks at
| Abbotsford, Hope and surrounding areas are having a pretty
| lousy time right now.
| jacquesm wrote:
| To me the 'boonies' in Canada is west of Timmins, East of
| Wawa and North of Desbarats in Ontario, and anything North
| of Kamloops in BC. The roads in BC are very critical
| infrastructure, there aren't that many of them to begin
| with and there are a lot of choke points on the downslopes
| of mountain ranges where you have to pass through,
| unfortunately it looks as though that's where the road
| outages are.
|
| Canada is an amazing country scenery wise, but it is also a
| very thin veneer of civilization on top of a very rugged
| countryside and it doesn't take much to turn it from
| workable into unconnected islands overnight. Let's hope
| that they manage to keep the power running and some way to
| keep those communities supplied because with winter on the
| way that can get ugly really quickly.
|
| Canadians are usually pretty self sufficient but without
| roads I'm not sure how that would work.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| the whole post was callous frankly
| brailsafe wrote:
| Heh, I think they meant everywhere between Vancouver and
| Toronto
| iainctduncan wrote:
| This is complete bullshit. EVERYONE is affected. Honestly, just
| read the BC news. If they think they aren't affected, then they
| don't understand BC supply chains and haven't noticed... yet.
| curmudgeon22 wrote:
| I'm in Burnaby. It was really rainy and windy for a couple
| days, but I haven't been meaningfully impacted so far.
|
| For sure it was a major storm with some major impacts, but I
| think most people in the lower mainland weren't severely
| impacted.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| If you mean for just today for someone in a less-impacted
| area of the Lower Mainland, that's an acceptable if
| minimalist answer, but saying "most people" is very
| problematic in the light of a huge amount of evidence from
| primary sources.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| I guess they haven't read yet on how damaged the supply
| chain is going to be then. This is not "we'll fix it up in
| a few weeks" road damage, it's more like major shipping
| roads in BC are going to be affected for through the worst
| of the winter here.
| lhorie wrote:
| To be fair, I just found out about this literally from
| the link at the top of this page, a couple of hours ago.
| Not exactly enough time to become an expert in supply
| chain logistics in a province I don't even live in.
|
| I'm reading now that there's already some stress due to
| displacements from the Lytton fire earlier this year, and
| displacements from Abbotsford, Merritt, etc are not gonna
| help the situation. I'm still trying to piece together
| the wider scope of the incident and don't yet have a good
| sense of what the overall damage looks like (though it
| increasingly looks like it isn't merely "a few key
| bridges happened to have flooded, it'll be fine once the
| water recedes" and it's more like "there are several
| landslides blocking roads along the route to Calgary and
| we're gonna be scrambling to staff the clean up efforts
| in time for winter").
|
| On the one hand, you just need enough room for a truck to
| pass through, dirt road carved by a tractor as it might
| be, in order to establish a supply line. On the other
| hand, given that some communities barely only ever had
| that in the first place, I imagine many might need to
| figure out plan B arrangements.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| Look, it's not "roads blocked". We're not talking "move
| the dirt and it'll be ok". The roads are GONE.
|
| Bridges and huge sections of the most important highways
| are now rubble floating down rivers with _nothing there
| anymore_. This is in some of the most difficult terrain
| to rebuild in that you could have. People who know what
| they are talking about are saying we are short highways
| through the winter.
|
| Here's some chopper footage:
| https://twitter.com/RobinMonks/status/1460690606410194949
|
| City folks who think this was just some rain are nothing
| but evidence of how disconnected city people can become
| from the infrastructure on which they depend.
| lhorie wrote:
| Oh wow, that's crazy. Thanks for sharing that.
| pomian wrote:
| If you live in Vancouver and are staying there it is not an
| issue. But there is an amazing huge scale issue of access to
| the interior of British Columbia. 2 out of 3 highways from
| Alberta are closed. That means you have to drive either an ~
| extra 500 miles north, or south, to travel 50-100 miles west or
| east. There is no way to travel across a whole region of a huge
| country. Similar to closing all east west highways in southern
| California, from the Mexico border to lake Tahoe. Sure , you
| can drive down to Mexico, across to Tijuana, and back up.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| The big issue is that the port in Vancouver is now essentially
| an island. Rail is impacted by this as well.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| The CP mainline that washed out will take a while to fix, but
| the other mainline, CN, doesn't seem to have taken any
| serious damage.
|
| They'll definitely have some cleanup somewhere, but that
| happens after every storm.
|
| I _hope_ the two have some mutual aid agreement to bypass
| over each others tracks.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| As far as I understand it, they already share their tracks
| in routine service, using one westbound and the other
| eastbound.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-
| track_railway#Direction...
|
| > A similar example exists in the Fraser Canyon in British
| Columbia, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific each own a
| single track line - often on either side of the river. The
| companies have a joint arrangement where they share
| resources and operate the canyon as a double track line
| between meeting points near Mission and Ashcroft.[22]
| Scoundreller wrote:
| "Competitors" sharing networks is such a Canadian
| tradition.
|
| Just like 2 of our 3 big cellular companies (Bell and
| Telus) sharing a single network.
| version_five wrote:
| I'm guessing its your point, but to spell it out, canada
| has oligopolies or monopolies, it doesnt have competitors
| at least in telecom and banking. From what I understand
| (like the recent Kansas? railway acquisition) CN and CP
| may actually be more in competition than some other
| industries. There is some complexity because part of the
| tradeoff for being granted oligo/monopoly status is the
| requirement to allow others on their network (e.g. for
| telco so maybe also for rail - I know they have to let
| Via, even if it's on a low priority basis). But overall,
| the business environment in canada is much closer to some
| kind of aristocracy or feudal system than an actual
| competitive landscape. Maybe that's true everywhere and
| just not as easy to see.
| [deleted]
| arcticbull wrote:
| It's essentially a peninsula, it still has road and rail
| links to Washington State.
| adrianpike wrote:
| Northbound I5 is flooded in Washington, however, so still
| not a great route for the next day or so:
| https://twitter.com/wspd7pio/status/1460623860944932864
| bialpio wrote:
| It's effectively become a Canadian version of Port Roberts.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington
| iso1631 wrote:
| Except Point Roberts (not Port) is just a residential
| area that isn't self sufficient in any way, and doesn't
| have thousands of containers arriving for shipping inland
| bialpio wrote:
| Sigh, brain lag. At least the wiki link I pasted was
| correct.
|
| Nothing to add to your point about self-sufficiency, my
| intent was to draw parallels to the comment I was
| responding to. ("It's [Vancouver] essentially a
| peninsula, it still has road and rail links to Washington
| State." <=> "It's [Point Roberts] a peninsula, it still
| has road links to British Columbia.").
| time_to_smile wrote:
| You could just as easily infer from this anecdata that people
| that live in cities tend to be very insulated from the
| infrastructure and larger support systems required to maintain
| their way of life...
|
| ...but Everything is Fine is an equally strong conclusion.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| I live in Vancouver and had no idea until a friend in another
| country saw the news and asked me about it. Not to say people
| elsewhere in BC weren't impacted (one town had to evacuate) but
| the media is not painting an accurate picture.
| lhorie wrote:
| Yeah, the evacuation order in Abbotsford[0] seems like the
| real news to me.
|
| [0] https://www.abbotsford.ca/alerts/evacuation-order-and-
| alerts...
| soperj wrote:
| Merritt seemed big as well.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Perhaps the picture being painted by the media is not being
| accurately assimilated by you? This is real, and magnitude of
| the circumstances is dire.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Dire in what way? Vancouver still has the YVR airport, a
| seaport, ferries, a downtown float plane airport and both
| road and rail access to the US. There will be some impact
| to prices, I imagine, while the road and rail links to the
| rest of Canada are rebuilt.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Dire for Merritt (evacuated), Princeton (under water),
| Hope (all highways closed or curtailed), Abbotsford
| (under water), Chilliwack (under water), Fernie (no
| highway access) and a host of other places on the
| mainland and on the Island that are vital transport,
| agricultural, forestry, tourism, and mining centres. You
| mentioned prices, so scale it up to international
| economics level.
| klyrs wrote:
| If I had a nickel for every time folks have suggested
| moving out to the country as a solution to the housing
| crisis...
| cf100clunk wrote:
| He he, and if I had 4 million nickels I _might_ be able
| to afford a small home in Metro Vancouver.
|
| [EDIT] see reply - should say 40 million but what the
| heck, I ruined the joke.
| ant6n wrote:
| You _might_ be able to afford a small home for 200K?? I
| thought Vancouver was much more expensive than that. Or
| do you mean only the down payment.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Did someone suggest that?
| cf100clunk wrote:
| "In the wake of the extreme weather events that continue
| to devastate First Nations across BC, the First Nations
| Leadership Council (FNLC) calls on the Provincial
| government to declare an indefinite State of Emergency in
| BC, effective immediately."
|
| https://www.bcafn.ca/news/fnlc-calls-state-emergency-due-
| unp...
| nitrogen wrote:
| I'm totally unfamiliar with the geography there; are
| peripheral cities and towns around Vancouver as
| unaffected as Vancouver itself? I can imagine it
| happening in some places I've lived, where the central
| city is humming along just fine and everyone inside the
| city is blind to the 50% of the population around the
| city that just got stranded and cut off from supplies.
| singingboyo wrote:
| Depends what you consider peripheral. The places within a
| couple hours big enough to notice as you drive through
| are basically Lions Bay/Squamish going north, Maple
| Ridge/Mission on the 7, and Abbotsford/Chillwack/Hope on
| highway 1 out the Valley.
|
| Chilliwack and Hope might be cut off, though I think it's
| possible to get there via minor roads/unusual routes.
| Abbotsford is partly flooded, but areas that aren't
| should be accessible. Lions Bay/Squamish and Maple
| Ridge/Mission are fine, as far as I know.
|
| So if a 1-2 hour drive is the limit, then parts of
| Abbotsford/Chilliwack/Hope are pretty miserable right
| now, but it should be fairly localised.
|
| On the other hand, you can argue that most of Southern BC
| is "peripheral" to Vancouver, despite parts being 4-5 or
| more hours away. Those parts will have more issues, since
| you start getting into places where the only connections
| are (were) the highways that flooded and washed out.
| mmartinson wrote:
| More or less. Greater Vancouver suburbs largely
| unaffected. Farther out peripherals (Abbotsford, Hope)
| badly flooded. All regional towns and cities beyond those
| cut off.
| [deleted]
| suetoniusp wrote:
| Perhaps the picture being painted by the media is not an
| accurate representation of reality. Get a grip man
| cf100clunk wrote:
| The parent comment to mine specifically mentioned media
| coverage. So, bearing in mind that there are states of
| emergency declared throughout the Province Of British
| Columbia as a direct consequence of this atmospheric
| event, there is plenty of objective primary source
| material available to anyone from those authorities
| should a person decline to believe media reportage.
| vkou wrote:
| The picture painted by the media is a pretty accurate
| representation of reality. This recent spat of weather
| has been pretty horrifying for a lot of people in the
| valley. Mudslides, power outages, flooding. My parents
| have been dealing with it for the past few days in their
| homestead out by Chilliwack, and it's not been great.
|
| I understand that someone WFH in their swanky Kits
| apartments isn't particularly impacted by any of this,
| but there does exist a BC outside of Vancouver.
| amatecha wrote:
| I live in Vancouver - my coworkers and family were very aware
| of this, watching footage online and exclaiming at the brutal
| nature of the weather and landslides we experienced yesterday.
| Never seen this many roads closed in BC in my nearly 4 decades
| living here.
| iammisc wrote:
| I'm not sure about BC, but coastal cities (not the big
| ones... the little ones) on the Pacific coast of the states
| regularly get 'stranded'. Honestly, as usual, the media
| overplays everything. The fact is that Vancouver and most
| major coastal cities are not going to be super-affected. The
| truth is that -- based on current import patterns -- the rest
| of the country is more likely to face shortages than any West
| Coast city where all the freight comes in.
| cronix wrote:
| The whole upper pacific coastline is experiencing it. There
| is a lot of flooding along the Oregon coast as well with
| cars/trailers floating away and evacuations. Intense rains
| for days at a time. I mean we get a lot of rain here, but
| this has been pretty crazy and constant.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Let's hope it migrates further south and relieves some of
| the California drought. Any meteorologists have a sense of
| the weather patterns at play here?
| cbsks wrote:
| According to this meteorologist "Drier-than-average
| winter still most likely outcome for most of California"
| https://weatherwest.com/archives/11748
| lhorie wrote:
| Oh, the atmospheric river did hit California, and pretty
| hard in some places. Last month was the wettest October
| on record here in San Francisco. The area around Dixie
| (where there was a big fire earlier this year) saw
| landslides.
|
| According to a podcast I listened to, this pattern might
| actually be bad because alternating cycles of extreme
| rain and extreme dryness means more vegetation growth
| during the wet months which in turn means more fuel to
| burn during the dry months.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| The loss of established growth hurts in the rainy season
| too as landslides worsen. In our local San Bernardino
| mountains here burn patches quickly turn to land or
| mudslides.
| waiseristy wrote:
| Typically it's snowpack that relieves drought. All
| torrential rain does is remove topsoil and blow out
| bridges
| mrtnmcc wrote:
| It looks like we will be in another La Nina year, which
| means wetter northwest and drier southwest..
| unfortunately.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/us/la-nina-california-
| dro...
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'm surprised there's no shortages yet because trucks can't get
| to the city. Or does Vancouver import most non-regional goods
| from the US (and not the rest of Canada) anyway?
| cf100clunk wrote:
| The BC Milk Marketing Board has told many of its producers to
| begin destroying their output until further notice since
| there is no means of transporting it:
|
| https://bcmilk.com/notice-to-producers-flood-conditions-
| and-...
|
| Vancouver's surrounding agricultural areas, lush as they are,
| will now be almost out of commission for an indefinite length
| of time.
| kazinator wrote:
| Dump, dump! Just whatever you don't sell 4 l of organic
| milk to a local for five bucks; they will get used to it.
| walshemj wrote:
| You'd presumably need the herd to be certified to sell
| raw milk like that.
|
| The other option is turn it into cheese
| justsid wrote:
| The shortage is the other way. The rest of BC gets most of
| its produce from the lower mainland. I live in Kelowna (funny
| to see a local news site on here), and our stores have
| basically no produce because we can't get anything from the
| lower mainland. Fun times.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Conversely, the outward flow of Okanagan wine products will
| be sharply affected. For example, the market for Okanagan
| ice wine in Asia is huge. Also, when the Lower Mainland
| growing season is done, the produce shipped from Chile and
| Peru comes into Vancouver's ports and goes out across
| western Canada and the North.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| At least ice wine is shelf stable for years, right? It's
| not like it's gonna go bad; it'll just be a little bit of
| a delay until it can be sold.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| the Trans Canada Highway in some parts is an undivided 2-lane
| road, so it wouldn't be surprising for freight to choose to
| take something like I-90 instead, though you would have to go
| through border checks.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Anything going to southern Ontario or Quebec would already
| be going through the US if it could because it's faster,
| better weather and cheaper gas. The only stuff that wasn't
| was stuff that couldn't (can't/won't do the paperwork).
| Customs bonding and inspections can be a real pain.
|
| Canada Post is going to be a real mess though. They either
| fly or truck overland domestically.
|
| I don't think they do any rail.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| The Trans Canada Highway from Kamloops to Hope was largely
| superceded as a trucking route by the more capacious and
| direct Coquihalla Highway after 1986. Now the Coquihalla is
| in dire condition.
| ars wrote:
| It has an airport, a ferry terminal, and a port with a
| railroad. I suspect trucks are not the main way supplies are
| delivered.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| BC Ferries has a multitude of travel advisories in effect
| due to the high seas and winds, so reliability is a
| concern. Vancouver has 2 ferry terminals, and both are
| subject to the conditions.
| lhorie wrote:
| Keep in mind that Vancouver is a port city, and the road
| closures did not affect roads to the US so for the vast
| majority of the people in the city, the impact is likely
| minimum. I'd be more worried about disruptions for
| municipalities like Hope, which are only connected to
| Vancouver by a handful of roads (the next major hub in the
| other direction would be Calgary, which is... well, pretty
| far away).
| fragmede wrote:
| _> road closures did not affect roads to the US_
|
| The storm that hit which caused the flooding which closed
| the roads also hit the Vancouver-adjacent parts of the US,
| so some of those are closed as well.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Gas comes through pipeline from refineries in Washington, so
| that should be largely unaffected.
|
| Lots of produce does come from the Fraser Valley which is
| impacted, but also North/South links to the USA (ie. we get
| heaps of produce from California).
|
| I assume there's a fair amount of food that is delivered from
| the port, as a lot of food packaging warehouses are near the
| port.
|
| Most trade in Canada is North/South aligned. Tbh the
| east/west orientation of the country doesn't make a lotta
| sense lol.
| bialpio wrote:
| > we get heaps of produce from California
|
| Are the prices in line with what those products would cost
| in the US (e.g. WA state)? I was under the impression that
| the prices in BC were lower, so now I'm wondering if the
| price adjustment to account for local markets is
| significant or not, or if I misremembered completely.
| vkou wrote:
| Prices aren't very different than WA state for most
| goods, but that's because BC, just like WA, grows a fair
| amount of food in the interior.
|
| Much of its out-of-season produce comes from California,
| but that's the case in WA, as well.
|
| Things like cheese are very expensive in BC, but that's
| due to Canada's dairy tax situation.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| I feel like the in season (from Fraser Valley) vs not in
| season (california or mexico) produce price is only like
| maybe a +$1-2 price modifier on things?
|
| I don't look too closely at my grocery bill, so I'm
| probably not the most helpful person to ask.
|
| I assume all the food is cheaper in the USA than Canada.
| frenchyatwork wrote:
| My impression are the prices are pretty similar with
| exception to dairy, where Canada has more stringent
| regulations and therefore prices are slightly higher.
| willyt wrote:
| Last time I was in New York was a good few years ago, but
| I was very surprised how much more expensive supermarket
| food was than in the UK, like 3x more. In a huge country
| with lots of farmland like the US with less stringent
| food regulations in theory food should be cheaper so I'm
| curious as to what causes this price difference.
| ciabattabread wrote:
| New York as in New York City? Everything needs to be
| trucked in and out and there are toll bridges everywhere.
| Go to the suburbs and food is cheaper. Go further and
| it's way cheaper.
| soperj wrote:
| No it doesn't. Vast majority of the gas is through Trans
| Mountain from Alberta. Also, more than half of the oil that
| gets refined in Washington comes from an arm of the Trans-
| mountain pipeline, so also Alberta. 100% of the fuel used
| at the Vancouver airport also comes through trans-mountain.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Vancouver is one of Canada's major seaports and air transport
| hubs, so there's that. Still, road, rail, and ferry
| disruption is extremely troublesome.
| soperj wrote:
| It's the biggest coal port in North America, so that will
| likely be disrupted for a while here.
| [deleted]
| ryanisnan wrote:
| As an anecdote, I live significantly East of Vancouver, but
| most of our goods come from the port of Vancouver. Things are
| going to get really interesting, as these roads will take a
| while to be repaired.
| JPKab wrote:
| Wait a minute now:
|
| I've been to Vancouver before, but I"m completely ignorant
| about the supply chain there.
|
| We're talking about a metropolis of 2.5 million people. What's
| the impact on food supplies, fuel, etc? Very curious. Is it
| primarily coming up from the US???
| kazinator wrote:
| Oh your brother will feel the pain when the Whole Foods on
| Cambie runs out of those cheap organic bananas from northern
| Alberta.
| woah wrote:
| Most of the population of Canada is within miles of the US
| border. For any given city, connection to the US is probably
| much more important than connections to other parts of Canada.
| hourislate wrote:
| >The only way to drive between the coast and the rest of Canada
| at this time is through the United States. Residents would need a
| COVID-19 test to re-enter Canada
|
| The Canadian Federal Gov (AKA Trudeau/Tam) are so fucking stupid
| requiring Canadians who are vaccinated to get a COVID test (3
| days before, like it helps) before _driving into Canada_. Looks
| good on Tam the dumb shit. What a Kakistocracy.
| twoheadedboy wrote:
| This reminds me of that one south park episode:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W1tWRMoiAI&t=152s
| plow-tycoon wrote:
| This happens in the prairies from time to time. Last year I got
| stuck in a Blizzard on my way to Winnipeg. All highways in the
| southern province shut down for a bit. We got stuck in a gully in
| the car until a snowplow came and saved us.
| [deleted]
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I watched a video series of a road trip from Victoria to
| somewhere in Yukon.[0] After getting to the mainland and past the
| Vancouver metro area, the quality of roads is striking. The
| further north they went, the more nothing they saw.
|
| [0]
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV_qemO0oath2Wpt7-8jQ...
| myohmy wrote:
| I've driven that trip many, many times. Its a wonderful drive
| if you like peace and quiet.
|
| Although as my cousin put it, all he saw was "A tree, a rock, a
| mountain, a river, and a bear."
| InTheArena wrote:
| Quick! Invade and size Vancouver while no one is paying
| attention.
| Kye wrote:
| Possibly useless comparison with a similar infrastructure
| failure: a section of I-85 on the way between the Atlanta
| perimeter and where a lot of people commute from caught on fire
| and collapsed. It took a little over a month to repair. That's
| with other worse but usable alternate routes, so maybe it'll go
| faster here.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| You can still go around, through the US.
| duck wrote:
| It might have just opened, but I5 was closed overnight as well
| south of Bellingham.
| bandrade wrote:
| Both directions are reopened as of about 9am PST.
| blondie9x wrote:
| This is why the border needs to remain open at all times. We
| need vital traffic to continue flowing smoothly.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Not without a Covid test, no matter your vaccination status...
| ironmagma wrote:
| And you can't drive without a driving test.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Terrible analogy. You're not required to take a road test
| every 48 hours to continue driving.
|
| Edit - might be 72 hours. Regardless... I've done a road
| test once in my life...
| ironmagma wrote:
| I drive quite a lot and haven't been required to take a
| Covid test after several years of driving during Covid.
| Bottom line: if you're crossing an international border,
| you're gonna have to do some stuff.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Whooosh...
| brewdad wrote:
| If you are so hung about about taking a COVID test, I'm
| sure there is a 14 day quarantine option available to
| you.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| I'm double vaxxed. I can enter the EU without a test. I
| can enter the US without a test. I can get an EU Green
| Pass without a test.
|
| So why is Canada's policy such? They REQUIRE proof of
| vaccination to enter, AND a test? Why?
|
| Edit - and yes I'm hung up on this. I don't want to pay
| $200+ dollars for a test I don't need. I got Covid in
| wave 1 before the first lockdown, I've done everything
| asked of us; masked, locked down, had to shut down
| multiple businesses, got vaccinated as soon as it was
| available to me, and they still want to make me take a
| useless test?
|
| I can't decide what's worse; our mediocre government or
| the fact any citizens at all support this theatre...
| ghaff wrote:
| You can't fly into the US without a test, even as a US
| citizen and even if you're fully vaccinated.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| You can drive through the US without a test.
| SkittyDog wrote:
| Vaccinated people can still catch, carry, and communicate
| COVID to others... and if you got vaccinated before the
| summer, your antibody levels are probably not as high as you
| think. Vaccination is not a binary thing, in terms of how it
| actually works.
|
| If an unvaccinated person catches COVID from you, it doesn't
| matter whether or not you (the carrier) were vaccinated...
| The virus that ravages and possibly kills your subsequent
| victim is just as dangerous to the unvaccinated.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Yes, definitely going to catch Covid in your car, driving
| through the US to get around the flooded out highways...
| helloworld11 wrote:
| This has all just turned into a remarkable amount of paranoid
| compliance idiocy. So, mandated vaccines but then the same
| shit as before requiring tests, masks and so forth despite a
| person having coverage with vaccines so supposedly wonderful
| that they are now being mandated through draconian methods
| and with zero liability for their makers. If the vaccines (as
| evidence seems to show) reduce the risk of COVID harm to
| something comparable to the seasonal flu, then why so much
| nonsense? Or will be soon all be forced to vaccinate for
| numerous other infectious illnesses that we somehow managed
| to live with for decades without absurd problems.
|
| What we see here is in many ways a biohazard version of the
| post 9/11 paranoia security theater that persists to this
| day.
| macinjosh wrote:
| You are 100% correct. Our leaders have no incentive to
| treat this crisis in a calm, reasonable way and that has
| led to vastly over-reaching interventions in people's lives
| no matter how well meaning the intentions are.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Take off your shoes and put on this mask, has a nice
| symmetry don't you think?
| tdeck wrote:
| You seem to not have noticed that there's a new variant of
| the SARS-Cov2 virus that's much more contagious than the
| previous variant, and spreads easily among vaccinated
| people. Sure, the vaccine makes you much less likely to
| die, but that doesn't mean you can't a) spread the disease
| to others and b) suffer long-term neurological symptoms. So
| that's why we still have other measures to control the
| spread like wearing masks and testing before being in
| certain settings.
|
| At the same time, it's not clear that the border is a
| particularly meaningful control at this point, since those
| variants are endemic on both sides of that border.
| exyi wrote:
| The test is still cheaper than the car. So probably not a big
| issue
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Not a big deal compared to actually being cut off with the
| current pressure on basic necessities.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Lots of people commute daily for work, in large part
| because Vancouver is no unaffordable. It's a massive
| headache, and that's why it's such big news.
|
| Taking a PCR test every 2 days just to be able to get
| to/from work is ridiculous. Especially since only one side
| is requiring it.
| [deleted]
| walrus01 wrote:
| You don't need a covid19 test now to drive into the USA. You
| do need to be fully vaccinated and to declare you have no
| symptoms. This is new with the border re-opening for non
| essential travel just about a week ago.
|
| You do need a covid19 test (quick antigen test is OK) to fly
| from Canada to the US.
|
| You do need a PCR covid19 test taken within the past 72 hours
| to re-enter canada by land or air, per CBSA requirements.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Yes, I know. Only Canada is requiring it. Nothing you said
| here refutes my statement. I'm talking about driving from
| Vancouver to another part of Canada. Because of the content
| of the article. To commute via the US, a test is required
| (because of Canada's current policy).
| ygjb wrote:
| Clearly you don't know folks working in the industry;
| Trade and Transportation drivers have been and are exempt
| from testing requirements. My brother has been driving to
| and from the area around Winnipeg through North and South
| Dakota as a truck driver during the entire pandemic, and
| was vaccinated early by the US. (also, non-anecdotal
| source -> https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-
| restrictions/exempt... )
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| And what does that have to do with anyone who doesn't fit
| into that one category?
| ygjb wrote:
| The overall tone of the thread is about logistics in a
| port city that is the main port of entry to Canada.
| Individually, the testing requirements are very
| disruptive, but it's one less issue that may have
| impacted supply chains within the BC lower mainland, and
| an avenue to ship goods out, albeit more expensively.
|
| This isn't (generally speaking) a thread about COVID
| restrictions, but if you want to sound off about that
| more, feel free, but it shouldn't be a shock that in a) a
| global pandemic, and b) a series of natural disasters,
| that no one really gives a fuck about how inconvenient
| travel has become for non-essential activities.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Fair enough. My responses might be slightly shaped by the
| fact I was going to drive to Vancouver next week to visit
| a friend and am flying to Europe in 2 weeks.
|
| > that no one really gives a fuck about how inconvenient
| travel has become for non-essential activities
|
| Plenty of people do. Hence why so many countries
| (literally the whole EU) are trying to facilitate travel.
| ygjb wrote:
| I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the EU was impacted by a
| massive critical infrastructure failure induced by a
| natural disaster.
|
| Like I said, this isn't a discussion or debate about
| COVID restrictions, and while it sucks that you might be
| temporarily inconvenienced in relation to your travel
| plans, as a person who lives and works in the lower
| mainland and has several friends and family members who
| are either homeless or temporarily stranded, temporary
| travel inconveniences rank somewhere between "oh well",
| and "could you please not, while we clean up?".
| ygjb wrote:
| Unless you are exempt, like truck drivers.
| https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-
| restrictions/exempt...
| mrfusion wrote:
| TLDR: flooding
| Dedime wrote:
| I surprised you didn't link Kelowna's finest newspaper, Castanet:
| https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/351544/Mudslides-close-all-...
|
| I love them because their reporting is terrible and the site
| itself is straight out of the 90's. They used to run polls that
| were easy to manipulate, according to a ex-coworker of mine. It's
| like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Nonetheless,
| everybody in Kelowna acts like Castanet is the one true source of
| information...
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| Holy heck it looks dope, straight out of 90s. I'm surprised it
| works well with Safari's Reader though.
| OJFord wrote:
| It's running through Cloudflare & hcaptcha, the aesthetic may
| be '90s, but it doesn't mean the code is necessarily.
| cormacrelf wrote:
| Reader and similar plugins have it easy on 90s websites. It's
| the 2010s onwards you have to worry about.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| wow. their website is fantastic.
| varenc wrote:
| I actually love this site. So refreshing. Feels like a homepage
| put together very manually by people that really care.
|
| Love the "Around The Web" section and how it genuinely just
| wants you to see a video of a cat playing piano [0]. No
| aggressive ad placement or fake product review schemes. Just an
| awesome video of a cat they wanted to share.
|
| Edit: And it seems polling system for "How does this story make
| you feel?" only relies on cookies to prevent duplicate votes...
| So I sent them 100 votes for "Awesome"
|
| [0] https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-
| story-351694-25-.htm#3...
| _3u10 wrote:
| Castanet, hits ya right in the feels.
| kryz wrote:
| Castanet's true genius is that it was founded by a guy who
| owned a bunch of radio stations and thus still sells
| advertising that way. $xxxx/mo for a rotating 250x250
|
| How many people will see it? Mmm about this many _hands
| outstretched as big as a salmon_
|
| The thing prints money as local businesses funnel all their
| advertising budgets to it.
|
| No expectation of performance, like buying a newspaper ad lol
| int_19h wrote:
| OTOH they seem to be hosting all their ads directly on their
| server, so e.g. PiHole doesn't block them.
| itronitron wrote:
| +1 for the link on their front page to a 'Tuesday Meme Dump'
| dleslie wrote:
| Castanet is gloriously imperfect. I hope they never change and
| never fade away.
|
| It's exactly what it looks like: a hodge-podged effort by some
| local folks with little experience and ability among them,
| besides an earnest desire to report local news with a local
| perspective, that has stood the test of time (it launched in
| 2000!).
| mattmanser wrote:
| So, an outsider's perspective:
|
| 1. It loads super quick
|
| 2. The list of articles is clear and easy to scan
|
| 3. There aren't a shit ton of adverts
|
| 4. There are no bloody popups, cookie notices, donate
| banners, etc.
|
| 5. The entire page doesn't load, me start reading then
| suddenly completely greyed out with an overlay because of
| badly implemented 4
|
| 6. No auto-playing videos that are impossible to find to stop
|
| If this is 90s web design that's "a train wreck in slow
| motion" and "gloriously imperfect", can we all go back to the
| 90s please?
| r00fus wrote:
| and no paywall!
|
| This site is great!
| toss1 wrote:
| Seconded.
|
| Not only that, I didn't even have to touch NoScript - it
| all apparently loaded perfectly. Wow, it'd be nice if much
| more of the internet was like this!
| mr_sturd wrote:
| To add to this, it appears to work perfectly without
| lifting any of my NoScript restrictions.
| dleslie wrote:
| The key with 90s web design is the relative absence of
| Javascript. There's virtually no asynchronous requests; and
| Castanet works fine with NoScript, most modern sites do
| not.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from, but I came from
| 90s webdev. The gift of aysnc requests was the one true
| credit I give MS for their contribution to moving the web
| forward (even if it might have been self-serving). The
| fact that we no longer had to do full screen refreshes to
| update one part of the page was glorious. It helped allow
| the deprecation of frames.
|
| However, just like all good things, people decided if a
| little is good more would be better. This is why we can't
| have nice things, but it doesn't mean that the thing
| itself isn't nice.
| nitrogen wrote:
| This goes back to the distinction between web _pages
| /documents_ (deliver immutable server-side content once,
| up front) and web _apps_ (lots of back and forth with
| mutable data on the server). A news website should never
| be anything except _pages_ , even with interactive
| content, but it seems almost nobody can resist the urge
| to treat everything like an _app_.
| djbusby wrote:
| I like to think of my App as a collection of Pages. While
| it does "stuff" we think of implementation Page first.
|
| Then clients say your app is fast and responsive but what
| they really mean is that we've not built an obese
| chimera.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Not every website is a news site, nor is every non-
| newsite an app. Having a website that functions as a
| store front and information page so that 90% of the site
| is static, yet dynamically being able to add things to a
| cart is an example. Is that an app? But not having to do
| a full page refresh on a POST to add an item to a cart is
| glorius.
|
| Just because the webiste in question of this thread is a
| newsite doesn't mean we have to throw the baby out with
| the bathwater because it fits this one category.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Is this a perspective on Castanet?
|
| Because there is literally at least one super distracting
| animated GIF ad in view 100% of the time while I scroll
| that page (which, on my iPhone, is not exactly easily
| readable due to lack of responsiveness).
|
| On the OP article I see zero ads but I think that's
| possibly my PiHole kicking in (which notable fails to block
| any of the presumably locally hosted adds on Castanet).
|
| I agree with some of your other points but let's not go to
| far :)
| chubot wrote:
| Yeah it's more usable than 95% of the websites I visit,
| e.g. pretty much every news site, Reddit, etc.
| soupbowl wrote:
| I can confirm that the poll is still easy to manipulate. I
| enjoyed and agree with all your comments about castanet.
| cgh wrote:
| It's not just Kelowna, it's the entire Okanagan valley. My
| mother-in-law lives in Summerland and she swears by Castanet as
| the one true news source.
| nikanj wrote:
| The majority of, well, everything in Canada comes from China (as
| with all countries). And it all arrives via port of Vancouver.
| Christmas shopping is going to be interesting this year, unless
| they get the freight moving asap.
| hammock wrote:
| I misinterpreted the headline the mean that the city was
| continuously surrounded by roads, e.g. a wild animal trying to
| reach the city could not without crossing a road somewhere.
| SkittyDog wrote:
| That's literally true of every regular city block, so it woukd
| seem a strange headline.
|
| I don't know what timezone you're in, but maybe you need a cup
| of coffee?
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Should be: "Vancouver is now completely cut off by road from
| the rest of Canada"
| kazinator wrote:
| I think if you put up a stop signs next to the obstructions and
| wash outs, Vancouver drivers then just sail right through them
| like they are nothing.
| btilly wrote:
| It looks like rail lines are also cut off.
|
| This is kind of a big deal for shipping. Approximately $200
| billion goods/year travel through Vancouver, including millions
| of (metric) tonnes of grain bound for Asia, and imports of
| Chinese goods bound for the rest of Canada. Most of that traffic
| now needs to find another route until repairs are made.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Are all of them cut off?
|
| There seem to be four, one north, two along the river, and one
| south.
|
| https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=49.346598...
| deanCommie wrote:
| Two are cut - the washout is on the eastern-most line heading
| to Kamloops about halfway up from Chilliwack. That's the most
| direct rail line to the rest of Canada.
|
| Going through the US and via Spokane is quite a detour.
|
| Also not all rail lines are created equal. The northern-
| orientated line that heads to Prince George can't carry the
| same capacity.
| btilly wrote:
| From https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bc-floods-rail-
| impact-1.625... it looks like some lines are out and others
| remain to be inspected once things clear up. So maybe all,
| maybe not all, but enough to be a big problem.
|
| A dairy farmer in Abbotsford is quoted as having only 5 days
| of feed. Consider the economic damage if farmers have to kill
| livestock, and can't even get them to a meat packing facility
| to recoup any part of their losses.
| austincheney wrote:
| It seems November is a hard month of rain in certain areas. When
| I was in Kuwait in 2018 they had a record flood on November 4th
| greater than anything in the modern history going back to the
| late 18th century when they civilized the area. Then on the 14th
| there was a flood that was 3x greater than the one on the 4th.
|
| I was also reading that this week southern Egypt is having an
| extreme problem with flooding that killed 3 soldiers.
|
| There are a bunch of videos on YouTube about it:
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kuwait+november...
| meken wrote:
| Anyone else reminded of The Dark Knight Rises?
| ygjb wrote:
| Less The Dark Knight because there are fewer bad guys with
| squeaky voices running around, and more like this...
| https://imgur.com/gallery/U5up5RT
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