WEYBURN – Russ Leguee had seen heavy downpours before, and had driven through them in Saskatchewan, but never while going through the mountains, as he and wife Sharon did during the devastating storm that hit the Lower Mainland of B.C. earlier this week.
The Fillmore farm family drove out to the West Coast to visit family, including Russ’s sister in Aldergrove, but they didn’t count on torrential rains, flooding and landslides being a part of the adventure.
They left their Fillmore farm on Saturday, stayed over in Creston, B.C. and encountered some snow and ice going through the mountains, and drove through heavy rain as they travelled towards Princeton. Leguee noted they had packed extra food and clothing as they knew driving through the mountains could sometimes get treacherous or there might be delays due to weather.
“Fortunately we had chosen to come on Highway 3,” said Leguee. “As it was getting dark, we were looking at cascades of water coming down and flowing across the highway.”
They had travelled maybe 25 km down this highway and they had to turn around and head back to Hope, stopping only for fuel before driving on in the heavy rain and the darkness.
Part of their journey took them down Highway 7, and Leguee said they learned later that about 20 or 30 minutes after they had driven this road, a couple of landslides came down stranding drivers in between the slide areas.
“Had we come through an hour later we would’ve been stranded in Hope along with some 2,000 others who were put up in gyms and other places,” said Leguee. “There was nothing you could buy. They had it pretty tough in Hope.”
He added that they were “extremely fortunate” to have missed some of the worst parts of this disaster. They reached their relatives safely in Aldergrove, not far from Abbotsford, and with the relatively high ground there they were able to wait out the rain and floods in safety.
“It could’ve been really bad for us, but we were really fortunate,” he said.
“I’ve seen that kind of rainstorm in Saskatchewan. When you’re on flat land, it spreads out. We’ve been through that, but here we had mountains and rocks and a lot of people. It becomes a huge ordeal,” said Leguee, noting a lot of chicken and dairy farms were flooded in the Fraser Valley also.
The major part of the flooding was in the Interior, he noted, as they were in Vancouver on Tuesday, and “life was quite normal there.”
On Friday, the Leguees’ plan was to head south and cross into Washington state to make their way back home to Fillmore, since the Canadian route east won’t be open for some time yet.
They didn’t have their passports, as they had no idea this situation would arise, but Russ said a number of sources told him the border officials would make an exception for travellers who needed to head east.
He had heard that the lineup of truckers wanting to head east was backed up three kilometres waiting to cross into the United States, but passenger vehicles would be allowed through.
They had also heard Highway 3 would be open to emergency and essential traffic only, but they weren’t sure if they would qualify to be allowed on this route.
“I will never leave home without my passport again,” said Leguee. “If we had been a little bit later, it would’ve been a far different story for us.”
