The Central Kootenay Regional District Emergency Operations Center has issued an evacuation alert for the community of Six Mile, British Columbia.
He says residents are not yet forced to evacuate, but advises people to be prepared to leave the area if an evacuation order is enforced.
BC’s River Forecast Center also upgraded its East Kootenay region rating to flood surveillance.
A rain warning was also issued for the Elk Valley, as many parts of northern BC and the interior remain under flood warnings.
There are high flow warnings for the Upper Columbia and West Kootenay regions. Affected waterways include the Elk, Kaslo, Bull and Kootenay rivers.
The warning comes when Environment Canada issued a rain warning for the Elk Valley, located in the East Kootenay region near the Alberta-BC border.
The forecaster said there could be between 50 and 80 mm of rain in the area on Tuesday morning and areas near Fernie are expected to receive the most rain. Rains could cause localized flooding, according to Environment Canada.
Another high-flow warning was issued for the South Thompson River and its tributaries, including the Seymour River, the Eagle River, the Adams River, and the Shuswap River.
“Significant flows”
The provincial river forecast center said rivers could rise to levels not seen in a decade, according to its current hydrological model, “indicating flood risks” on Monday and Tuesday, especially east of Kootenays .
“Given the uncertainty in the position of the weather pattern and the heavier rains,” the center said in a statement, “it is possible that the areas adjacent to West Kootenay and Upper Columbia will also experience significant flows.”
In response to the flood alert the center issued Saturday for the North Thompson River, including tributaries around Barriere and Clearwater, the Clearwater district activated its Level 1 Emergency Operations Center.
Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell says there are concerns about the long-term forecast, which includes rainfall and temperatures in the 20s and high teens, and snow levels that are excessively high.
“If this continues and the rain continues, this … could cause us a problem if we do not see a change in this forecast,” he said.
The Liard River in northeastern BC, which includes tributaries around Fort Nelson and Highway 97 to Lake Watson, remains a concern and is still being classified as a flood warning.
Many other BC inland regions are under flood surveillance or high flow warning.
This image posted on Twitter on Saturday by Langley Township, due to rising river level at Fort Langley, shows a warning sign of high water levels in Langley Marina Park, BC. (Langley Township / Twitter)
In Fraser Valley, the road from Marina Park to Fort Langley was closed on Sunday due to rising water levels.
Parts of the Fraser Valley Regional District, such as Hope, Boston Bar, Spences Bridge, and Yale, suffered landline interruptions on Sunday that affected 911. But the district said in an emergency alert that the mobile telephony is still operational.
A flood warning is the most serious of a three-tier warning system used by the forecasting center and means flooding is expected.
Flood monitoring, on the other hand, means that river levels are rising and flooding can occur. The high flow warning is the lowest of the three levels issued by the River Forecast Center.