VANCOUVER -There's an urgent need to repair broken dikes in British Columbia's Fraser Valley with rain in the forecast and a river in Washington state still pushing water north, says the mayor of a community with the highest flood level.
Showers are expected on Thursday, but Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said it's next week's forecast that worries him.
"There's predicted 80 to 100 millimetres of rain coming next week beginning Tuesday," he told a news conference on Thursday. "That's what I'm concerned about if we don't fix those breaches."
The Nooksack River in Washington state has forced the flood level up another 15 centimetres, Braun said, though a pump station is pushing out 2.2 million litres a minute.
"We are still not pumping anywhere near the amount of water out of the system that is coming into the prairie across the border."
Braun said he mentioned in conversations with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier John Horgan and other provincial ministers that the repair bill will be costly.
"They said the province will be there for us but when you start totalling this up, you're going to get up to $1 billion, I predict."
Braun said the community had a cost assessment of $400 million a few years ago to rebuild the same dikes that have now been breached.
For now, he said work is underway to repair a water main so farmers that haven't been affected by the floods can water their animals.
"We are doing everything we can to find those leaks under four or five feet of water and to repair them. That's not an easy task," he said.
Of the 20,000 cattle in the flooded area, Braun said he's heard about 2,000 have died.
Abbotsford Police Chief Mike Serr said at the same news conference that about 40 people remain in the area covered by an evacuation order, while the water level continues to fluctuate.
"You are putting our first responders, our rescue services, at risk by staying there should we have to go in there when this gets much more complicated. So please leave the area," Serr said.
Canadian Forces members have started arriving in B.C., the first of what the prime minister has said could be several hundred troops to help the province recover from devastating floods and mudslides.
The Canadian Joint Operations Command said in a statement nine members of the Edmonton-based 3 Canadian Division Immediate Response Unit arrived overnight to start scoping out the scene before planning and co-ordinating relief efforts in earnest.
Other troops have been put on high alert and will start to assemble and deploy into the area once the advance team and provincial government determine where they are needed most.
At the same time, a C-130 Hercules is on its way from CFB Trenton while one helicopter from CFB Edmonton and another from CFB Esquimalt are on standby.
The B.C. government declared a state of emergency Wednesday in response to flooding and landslides that began Sunday after record rainfall drenched much of the southern part of the province for more than 48 hours.
One person is confirmed dead in a landslide that swept vehicles off a road near Pemberton, and the search continues for more victims.
