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Gov't could have averted disaster

This is the most somber story that has ever had to be written in any British Columbia newspaper. It is the story of shock-

:

ing and criminal government negligence and

responsibility for the disastrous scope of the flood calamity.
long rampaging rivers as thousands of citizens fought with desperate courage to block

It is a story that cries

from the tangled skein of developments a )
re ; is a story heartrending to write because of the human anguish that could have been avert-

the further sweep of the disaster.
The story is that Victoria—an

ed.
thousands from total or

It

partial ruin.

Labor rallies to fight
flood, assist victims

Labor organizations are
to meet the flood disaster.

giving every aid in helping
B.C. Federation of Labor

efforts to, initiate a flood relief fund were followed within
two days by government appointment of Howard T. Mitchell,
Vancouver Board of Trade president, to set up such a fund.

The fund is now being administer-
ed by an advisory committee head-
ed by Austin Taylor and including
AFL and CCi representatives,

At a special B.C. Federation of
Labor conference, 14 CCL unions
pledged to raise cash and supply
manpower, and demanded the gov-
ernment take all steps necessary to
meet the crisis.

IWA locals. .in the midst of rais-
ing, their own fighting fund for
this year’s contract struggle, have
started to roll in donations to the
flood relief fund, while thousands
of IWA and other union members.
including top labor officials, are
working on the dykes.

Fraser River District ‘Council,
representing seven locals of the
United Fishermen and Allied Work-
ers’ Union, has offered its full sup-
port to the Emergency Flood Relief
Committee and is organizing its
members for volunteer work, col-
lection of emergency supplies and
_donations of cash, food and cloth-

Vancouver Trades and Labor
Council applauded executive notice
of motion to donate $1,000 and call-
ed on all affiliates to give financial
backing.

B. C. Federation of Labor affil-
iates have turned in $2,500 and its
officials are meeting with army
authorities to map plans for des-
patching trained woodsmen, min-
ers, and other personnel to flood
areas.

CIO miners saved the day by
blasting river obstructions in the
Kimberley flood and are working
night and day at Trail.

Vancouver’s Civic Reform Com-
mittee threw its strength behind
Red Cross relief efforts with a cam-
paign to line up billets for evacuees
and blood donors. One member
lined up 42 donors.

The outside workers’ section of
the Civic Employees Union aided in
mobilizing crews of trained sewer
workers for specialized dyke work.

Deliver them to any of
=the following addresses:

115 East

6 East 2nd Avenue
901 Industrial Avenue
1445 Powell Street
1040 Hamilton Street
755 Homer Street
Cor.11 Ave. & Vine St.

Phone TAtlow 2753

2nd Avenue

that the winter extended into

later.

off a disaster. There was
hauling and strengthening

could swing into action on

The prime responsibility

the situation.

the dikes would be endangered by
any spring freshet, let alone a ma-
jor flood:

Nothing was done. Local author-
ities were left to cope with any
situation that might arise. The
government’s head was in the
sand. .

Suddenly, during the May 24
holiday weekend, danger came. Riv-
ers ran riot at Kimberley and
through most of the interior. A
huge volume of water was roaring

down the Fraser canyon, towards
unprepared Valley communities.

The Mission gauge, after rising
13 feet since May 1, stood May 25
at 18.82 feet, six feet higher than
the same date in 1947, and ap-
proaching the 20-foot danger point.

C. E. Webb, district engineer
of the Dominion Water and
power Bureau, warned that “cir-
cumstances in the Interior and
the Valley match perfectly with
those that produced the great
flood of 1894. Only a compara-
tively smali amount of the spring
run-off has occurred today and
continued high temperatures
will have disastrous results.”

That was a clear alarm. Temper-
atures were continuing high.

But the government’s Dykes In-
spector .and Commissioner, Bruce
Dixon, announced “there is no im-
mediate flood danger.”

“The danger of flood to the Fra-
ser will/ come when the heavy
snows thaw.” He prophesied the
Mission gauge would go higher, but
“at the moment everything is hold-
ing well. . . The river is two and
a half feet less than in 1936 and
there was no disaster then.”

“No immediate danger’ was the
apparent pcsition on which the
government based itself, because
nothing yet was done.

At 2 a.m. that same night Agas-
siz dyke broke. Local volunteers,
including high school students call"
ed out of school by the -reeve, lost
their back-breaking unaided battle.

In all the Valley communities,
local authorities and volunteers
were left to cope with oncoming
disaster.

It was an epic fight that could
not be won by local resources.
Thousands of lives were imperil-
1-d. Hundreds, then thousands lost
their homes, their all.

May 26 Premier Johnson was in-
specting the Valley.

May 27 the Labor-Progressive
Party voiced the demands of thou-
sands in the Valley and through-
out the province who had expected

necks. But it just wouldn’t be true.
It’s true there has been an abnormally heavy snow fall and rain fall last winter, and

abnormally late spring.

time for the complete over-
of the dikes. There was

time to plan a complete anti-disaster organization that

a moment’s notice.

for this rested with the pro-

vincial government. The government took no notice- of

Months ago the Associated Boards of Trade in the Fra-
ser Valley detailed their complaints about the weakness of
the dykes at Agassiz and Matsqui. They pointed out that

fight before then. LPP provincial
leader Nigel Morgan despatched an
urgent wire to the government
branding .the situation a “grave
emergency” and calling for joint
anti-flood emergency actions be-
tween federal and provincial author-
ities.

No reply was received. The dis-
aster churned on.

That day, George Cruikshanks
rose in the federal House to de-
mand that Ottawa act. “It’s a na-
tional emergency,” he declared.

“I suppose that can be argued,
but I am not going to argue it to-
day,” was the cold reply of Public
Works Minister Alphonse Four-
nier, “We would not like to in-
tervene in provinces that are so
jealous of their autonomy.”

It was not till the next day that
an appeal was sent east for 50,000
desperately-needed sandbags to be
flown to the coast.

And not till Saturday, May 29,
were the first steps taken to co-
ordinate the work. That day a co-
ordinating committee was set up
comprising army, navy,: air force.
police, civic, Red Cross and
provincial authorities under chair-
manship of E. Roland Gillie,

May 31, Premier Johnson finally
proclaimed a state of emergency,
announced “the seriousness of the

d Ottawa—failed to take either the long term or the immediate steps that could have saved
It is an almost unbelievable tale of ‘’Singapore mentality.’
To believe it was just the weather that was responsible might save a lot of political

All this was reported by the meterologists and government engineers. For months
there were reports of the huge snowfalls piling up in the mountains. It was known that
the early spring freshet was light, leaving a terrible amount of water to be carried away
It was known on the basis of reports early in May that if a spell of hot weather
were to combine with all the other factors, a dangerous situation could develop.

All this was known in plenty of time for full preparations to be made to stem

ley and the Lower Mainland of B.

C. has made necessary a unified’
control of all agencies engaged in
combatting the menace,” and gave
Col. T. E. Snow, army commander
in B.C., authority to call on ail the
necessary help.

By that time dikes had gone out
at Agassiz, Dewdney, Hatzic, Mis-
sion, Langley, Port Mann, Barn-
ston Island, Nicomen Island, Har-
rison Mills and Matsqui, At Matsqui
a lone dyke watcher had to run
for his life for three miles to sound
the alarm,

A co-ordinated effort a week be-
fore, with full use of ‘emergency
powers, could have mobilized hun-
dreds of bulldozers, trucks, load-
ers and other equipment. together
with thousands of extra dyke-build-
ers—the help that when it did come
to the inundated areas, was “too
little and too late.”

Yes, the weather was “abnormal”.
But the 1894 flood measurement
was 25 feet, 9 inches on the Mis-
sion gauge, and government reports
set that level as “the standard for
dyking works reconditioned there-
after and for all subsequent con-
struction.”

The peak 1948 level at press time
was 24.45 feet—1.3 feet below “the
standard for dying works’—and
the dykes were in such shape $30,-
000,000 worth of damage has al-
ready been done, to say nothing of
human. suffering and danger.

Even in May there was time to
set the dykes in condition. Even
when the danger threatened Agas-
siz, an all-out co-ordinated effort
could have saved most of the dykes
that have broken,

This crime against the people
must be made known. Terrible is
the responsibility of those whose
power and duty it was to meet the
situation, but who did too little
and too late.

flood situation in the Fraser Val-

Silence would be acquiescence.

Iticism Oo

Cr

with the flood crisis is rising in
points affected.
men met this week to draft

|dangerous situations.

Sumas dykes went unpatrolled
for twenty-four hours.

Over two hundred troops were
rushed to Abbotsford with trucks
and jeeps only to remain idle dur-
ing discussions modifying Premier
Johnson’s initial authorization for
the army to cope with the situa-
tion,

Five hundred trucks offered by
the B.C. Truckers’ Association had
not been used.

It was claimed that the Matsqui
dyke might have been’ saved
through adequate precautions, and
there were bitter charges of lack
of direction.

As flood dangers developed at

a co-ordinated all-out anti-flood

interior points mass meetings were

f government
rises from flood areas

Seething criticism of government failure to properly cope

the Fraser Valley and Interior

in Abbotsford, farmers and local business-

a sharp demand for action.

Numerous instances were cited of lack of action to meet

held which addressed urgent aPp-
peals for action to government au-
thorities.

Intense dissatisfaction with gov-
ernment anti-flood measures was 4
contributing factor to the CCF vic-
tory in Yale,

George Cruikshanks, Liberal MP
for Fraser Valley, charged in the
House before leaving for the flood
areas that proper dredging would
have prevented the situation, and
at Matsqui claimed “It was down-
right stupidity on the part of pro-
vincial and federal government for
the past 25 years that left us with-
out protection.”

He also blasted the CPR for
“failing to accept its responsibility
for a dyking program.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 4, 1948—PAGE 12