Strike a Balance: What If My Home is in a Flood Zone?

In the town of Grand Forks, famous for sunshine and borscht and home to a little over 4,000 people, the GEM Theatre (one of the oldest theatres in Western Canada) is, in fact, a gem.  
 
In the 1910s — when it was still named the Empress Theatre — live performances put on by locals gave people relief during World War I. Small-town bands often jammed there on Sundays when it was the Granada Theatre. And from the 1950s onwards, it became the GEM, screening movies, and hosting musicians, live shows, and fundraisers. 

In May 2018, the town experienced the worst flood in its history — reports called it a “one in 200 year” flood. Multiple neighbourhoods had to be evacuated, businesses and buildings — including the GEM — were damaged, and homes were lost. Later that year, their City Council voted for a managed retreat. 

A managed retreat, Kees Lokman, a professor and director of the Coastal Adaptation Lab at the University of British Columbia, says, is moving people, properties, and infrastructures out of a vulnerable area. It can be proactive (developing relocation plans for areas where disaster could happen) or reactive (relocating in response to a disaster that has already happened). 

In Grand Forks, people, property, and infrastructures had to be moved away from the town’s flood zones, and a “property buyout” program was implemented. As Angela Danyluk, a Senior Environmental Specialist at the City of Vancouver, explains, this means that the city would purchase properties near flood zones from their owners and transform those areas for “low risk use.” 

Examples of low risk use, Angela says, are parks and wetlands. They make flood prone areas “publicly accessible for other benefits like recreation” while ensuring that those areas remain a place where excess water can go “during a high flood event” and “won't cause any damage to people's homes or lives.” 

Grand Forks was the first BC town to use the managed retreat strategy (cities like Surrey and Abbotsford have considered it, and in Vancouver there are no plans for it at the moment, Angela shares), but regardless of where it happens, it is not without its challenges, both Angela and Professor Lokman say. 

They’re expensive, emotionally and mentally taxing, and can make life more difficult for those already facing systemic disadvantages Systemic disadvantages In British Columbia, historical colonialism, enduring discriminatory policies, and systemic discrimination contribute to ongoing social inequities. These disparities are further exacerbated by climate change, requiring a nuanced and intersectional approach to climate resilience.Learn More .

When disaster strikes, marginalized populations are often hit the worst — a study found that Indigenous peoples, women, seniors, low-income earners, and unhoused populations were among the groups most impacted by the 2018 flood in Grand Forks. 

And in the case of a reactive managed retreat, “you have to act quickly” under already strenuous circumstances, Professor Lokman points out. “People are without homes, power is not working — you have much less time to engage communities.” 

In BC, many people and communities are located close to water or near flood zones. And as our climate continues to change, frequent flooding events are expected. If a managed retreat is to occur, Professor Lokman and Angela say that it needs to be done equitably and with significant input from the impacted community, and adequate resources and support need to be invested into helping them get established in new locations. 

“Recovery (after a climate disaster) is costly, it takes a long time, and it's not a quick win,” Angela says. So, “understanding what matters most and what we care about” and listening to the voices of all affected populations, is what will make a difference as we plan for future climate hazards, Professor Lokman adds. 

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