The Sea to Sky Highway linking Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., has been closed in both directions after a mudslide near Lions Bay brought down trees and debris to block the road as shown in this handout image on Dec. 14.Michal Aibin/The Canadian Press
Provincial and municipal authorities will be reviewing whether anything could have been done to prevent torrents of mud that slid into Lions Bay over the weekend, destroying a home and killing one resident of the village north of Vancouver.
A second person was still missing Monday afternoon after the weekend windstorm, which also led to the mudslide temporarily blocking the nearby highway between Vancouver and Whistler. No official cause of the mudslide has been determined yet.
In 2018, the village published an official assessment of surrounding water and rock hazards, a report that was meant to guide any new housing development. The outside firm contracted to do the assessment found many housing lots are “apparently vulnerable to multiple geohazards, including ocean, creek and hillslope hazards.”
In the report, which is on the village’s website, Cordilleran Geoscience noted that, up to that point, Lions Bay could ask for individual risk assessments from real estate developers under provincial legislation.
But, the report says, Lions Bay did not have an overall picture of the risks posed to the community, which was established before such threats were regularly considered by its city hall.
Mayor Ken Berry said Monday that he was not familiar with the report, or whether the site of Saturday’s mudslide has ever been flagged as a potential hazard. There will likely be a review of the incident moving forward, he said.
“We have not, during my tenure, had any discussions in that regard,” said Mr. Berry, who was elected in 2022. “And, quite honestly, we’re focused on the events that are taking place right now.”
He added that the village has “good information” on the deceased and the person who remains missing but is not disclosing their names at this time.
Cordilleran Geoscience could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.
The 2018 report mentioned that by the middle of the last century there were logging roads above the village, which represent a risk, according to Calvin VanBuskirk, a geotechnical engineer who has spent decades assessing such threats for forestry and mining companies.
He said he does not know what caused the fatal mudslide in Lions Bay, but said dozens of communities across the southern portion of B.C. are facing more risks of land and mudslides as climate change is intensifying storms across the region.
He said this risk is exacerbated by hundreds of kilometres of “orphan roads” built by companies who are no longer licensed to extract natural resources in the area, and thus, no longer obligated to maintain these pathways to ensure they drain properly.
One such unmapped logging road contributed to a mudslide three years ago that killed five people travelling north of Whistler on the same highway that was hit this weekend further south by Lions Bay.
A decade ago, the provincial forestry watchdog estimated 480,000 km of logging roads had been built in B.C., a distance equivalent to nearly a dozen trips around the equator, but there is no comprehensive map of where these defunct paths are perched, Mr. VanBuskirk said.
“It means that nobody has any responsibility for that road, it could be a road built for any reason, but nobody has any responsibility to inspect it and maintain it,” he said.
Mr. VanBuskirk and others in his industry have called on the province to use laser technology, called LiDAR, to begin mapping out the worst of these orphan roads.
“You need to find them first and where are you going to focus your money? On the ones that are that are most likely to cause significant problems, the ones that are built upslope of places and infrastructure that’s likely to claim lives or cause significant environmental damage or significant economic loss.”
The mayor, asked whether the village has the resources to address such potential hazards moving forward, said only that the village is appreciative of the resources provided by the province and Metro Vancouver, of which he is a director.
On the province’s recommendation, the village declared a local state of emergency on Sunday, making available additional resources and funding.
“The closer relationship that we can have with Metro Vancouver and the province, and leveraging off of the resources of both parties, will only help us and other smaller communities,” Mr. Berry said.
With a report from The Canadian Press