As heavy rains pounded the Fraser Valley and other parts of B.C. in November 2021, Chris Rampersad drove away from his home in the dark at 2:45 a.m.
When the trucker returned to his Chilliwack Lake Road home about 3 p.m. after a long day of work, he found there had been a small landslide that stopped about five metres short of his house.
Dirt, trees and other debris had come down a steep slope above his home. While there was some mud and water at the back of his house, there was no major damage.
Rampersad was relieved.
He believed he had got lucky.
But things got worse from there.
The next day, the RCMP showed up and told him he had to evacuate because of the potential of a massive landslide.
Less than a year later, Rampersad was called into a meeting at city hall in Chilliwack, where an array of more than a dozen officials, including from the province and the Fraser Valley Regional District, told him that geotechnical reports of the landslide risk showed his home was no longer safe to live in and there was no way to fix the problem.
In 2024, he found out the province had assessed his property’s value at $2: $1 for the land and $1 for the home. The year before, his property had been assessed at $780,000.
Then provincial officials told Rampersad there was not going to be any financial help.
Tara Richards, the deputy minister of emergency management and climate readiness, wrote him in 2024: “I know this is not the outcome that you had been hoping for and that this may be very difficult news to receive.”
He was advised to move from the property if he had not done so already.
Similar news was delivered to five other property owners in the Chilliwack River valley who also faced increased landslide risks as a result of the torrential rains in 2021, often called atmospheric rivers, that caused billions of dollars of damages across B.C. and resulted in thousands of people fleeing their homes.
During the more than 2½ years after the slide, Rampersad said he thought the government was working on a solution, determining whether it would buy out his and other properties at assessed or market value.
In 2023, George Heyman, who was then environment minister in the NDP government, told reporters he was aware of the six property owners and he was in discussions with local government officials and that he and Bowinn Ma, then the emergency management minister, would be having more talks with their colleagues.
Said Rampersad: “I never thought the government would provide no help.”
He says the B.C. government never provided a reason for rejecting financial aid or a buyout of their properties.
This month provincial officials told Postmedia the reason the six property owners did not receive assistance was because buildings must sustain damage to be eligible for the province’s disaster assistance program.
This despite hundreds of millions of federal dollars that flowed to the province to help offset the cost of damage to homes and the other costs borne by B.C. residents hit by the deadly rainstorms in 2021. The federal government has estimated its share of the storm damage will be $3.4 billion.
The government’s disaster financial assistance program “is unable to provide compensation for damage or erosion of land,” the Emergency Management Ministry said in a written statement sent by public affairs officer Lee Toop.
The province, under David Eby’s NDP government, did not respond to Postmedia’s questions about why it does not have a provincial buyout program. Other provinces have bought homes at risk from floods and slides, including in Alberta, Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland.
In a written response, the Emergency Management Ministry said buyouts are the responsibility of municipal governments.
Rampersad and the other five property owners are in the Fraser Valley Regional District, where officials pointed the finger at the province, telling Postmedia any questions on buyouts should be directed to the B.C. government.
In a short written response, Jennifer Kinneman, the chief administrative officer for the regional district, called buyouts a “provincial decision.”
Experts in natural hazards risks say the B.C. government likely won’t consider a buyout in this case because it is trying to avoid creating a precedent, which might put it on the hook for more buyouts as landslide risks increase because of climate change and as risks become better understood for existing properties.
Glenn McGillivray, managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction and an adjunct professor of disaster and emergency management at York University in Toronto, says it is a major consideration in B.C. because there is so much terrain susceptible to landslides and hazards like debris flows along steep slopes, ravines and creeks.
Concerns about landslide and debris flow risks were reignited five months ago when a mudslide swept through a home in Lions Bay along the Sea to Sky Highway corridor, killing two people and damaging two other homes.
Just two months before that, a woman was killed in Coquitlam when her home in a forested area was swept away by a debris flow triggered by heavy rain.
“They just might open that door that, you know, that they wish they had never opened before,” said McGillivray.
There is little question that the costs could be significant.
In a high-level review in 2023 for the Fraser Valley Regional District, BGC Engineering identified more than 3,600 properties that face steep-creek risks that include floods and debris flows. That is more than the 2,700 properties at risk of flooding.
There are properties at risk to landslides and debris flows on Metro Vancouver’s North Shore and along the Sea to Sky Highway to Squamish and Whistler, and in the many other steep-valley communities in B.C., show other reports.
The province has said that landslide risks are increasing from heavy rains, floods and wildfires. Fires can make soils less stable.
Even if a small fraction of properties in B.C. susceptible to landslide risk became candidates for buyouts, the cost could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Alberta set aside $137 million for a buyout program after devastating floods hit the southern region of the province in 2013. Quebec had spent $50 million by 2022 to buy out properties after repeated flooding in Gatineau, a figure expected to rise. New Brunswick spent $8 million on buying out homes after flooding in 2018. Newfoundland bought out homes after a 2009 landslide.
The idea behind buying out properties and relocating people is that it costs less in the long run because government is not paying repeatedly for damages from natural disasters.
When done properly, it can be cost-effective, according to the 2023 report Buying Out the Floodplain: Recommendations for Strategic Relocation Programs in Canada.
One of its authors, Jason Thistlewaite, a University of Waterloo associate professor with the school of environment, enterprise and development, says higher levels of government are often leaving natural hazard risk mitigation to local governments, which in turn may fear setting a precedent for future buyouts.
“So, it seems to be being done on a case-by-case basis,” observed Thistlewaite.
While most buyouts have been in high-risk flood areas, there’s no reason they cannot be used for other hazards, he said.
Landslide is a risk that is generally excluded from homeowner insurance, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. That’s because landslides are considered unpredictable and damage can be extensive. Rampersad’s home insurance did not cover landslides.
The Buying out the Floodplain report recommends having a buyout program ready to implement before a disaster and establishing a federal program to assist provinces and municipalities.
A different approach in the past
While the province today says local governments have responsibility for buyouts, it has taken a different approach in the past.
The province, under an NDP government, provided funding to help buy out 63 properties for $17 million in Grand Forks after devastating flooding in 2018.
The province, under a B.C. Liberal government, bought out properties in the Chilliwack River valley in 2009 and 2011 after landslides and mud flows hit those properties, shows a Postmedia review of B.C. land titles records.
In 2009, just months after a major rainfall caused a slope failure on a property on Auchenway Road, the B.C. government provided money to the Fraser Valley Regional District to buy out a home for $185,975, which was later donated to the Fraser Valley Conservancy.
A restrictive covenant attached to the title stated the Ministry of Public Safety had determined “the most cost-effective solution to address the risk of the residence on the lands were to remove the residents from hazard by purchasing the land and prevent future residential occupation.”
The property bought out in 2009 is on the same road as two of the six properties that this time have received no financial aid or a buyout.
In 2011, the B.C. Transportation Finance Authority bought a parcel of land for $1 million on Chilliwack Lake Road, several kilometres west of Rampersad’s property. The land and road had been inundated by a landslide and flooding in January 2009 from the same heavy rain that hit the property bought out for $185,975. A geotechnical report assessing the damage noted that there was risk of future debris flows that could affect properties on both sides of Chilliwack Lake Road.
Erv Warkentin, Rampersad’s neighbour, was unaware of the details of the earlier buyouts.
“Maybe they figured people had forgotten about it,” he said.
Warkentin now lives elsewhere with family, but says he tries to stay at his property a couple of days a week despite the risks.
Warkentin and Rampersad say they had no knowledge of the landslide risks when they bought their properties in 2017 and 2019. Warkentin’s place was built in 1985 and Rampersad’s in 1979. A large shop was approved to be built in 1996 on Rampersad’s property, where a geotechnical report determined it was safe to do so.
There were and are no restrictions attached to the land title for either property, show property records.
Geo-technical reports commissioned by the Fraser Valley Regional District after the 2021 landslides show there is not only increased risk to their homes but to Chilliwack Lake Road, which provides access to homes to the east, the Ford Mountain jail, Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park and a number of other recreation sites.
The recent geotechnical reports, and others dating back to the 1980s, were only added to the regional district’s pubic online map system in 2024.
A report prepared by Statlu Environmental Consulting in December 2021 noted the hillside above Rampersad and Warkentin’s properties had likely been deforming for decades but the extremely wet weather had increased the likelihood of a major slide by 20 times. The report said it was not a matter of if, but when a major slide would take place, pegging the probability at 65 to 89 per cent in the next 10 years.
That slide would be about 100 metres wide and would destroy all structures at the Rampersad and Warkentin properties, killing anyone inside, before running across Chilliwack Lake Road, completely blocking it under several metres of debris, said the report.
“It is now almost certain that such a large landslide will occur,” said the report.
Patti MacAhonic, an elected director for the regional district that represents the Chilliwack River Valley, has been trying to help the six property owners get financial help from the provincial or federal government.
She says she has talked to anyone she can, including cabinet ministers, but has got nowhere.
She notes the six properties were assessed at about $5 million before the increased landslide risk.
MacAhonic believes buyouts should be a provincial responsibility because local governments don’t have the money or capacity to take on a longer-term program.
“These folks deserve justice and a fair resolution. They’re just in a terrible situation,” said MacAhonic. “They weren’t treated properly.”
Despite the province and the regional district each saying it is the other’s responsibility to examine any buyouts to reduce risk, the district in conjunction with the province recently awarded a $500,000 contract to BGC Engineering for a detailed stability assessment of the escarpment lands north of Chilliwack Lake Road, including the area where the six properties are located.
That study is funded with money from the province, with representatives of the B.C. emergency management, forests and transportation ministries, and regional district officials forming a steering committee to oversee the work. The district has noted that hazards from the slopes — landslides and mud and debris flows — are not well understood and have never been comprehensively assessed.
The study is meant to provide options to mitigate risk of slides, including early warning systems, protective works and so-called managed retreat, which uses buyouts of properties to relocate people to reduce risk. The latter is the very thing used in the past by the province in the Chilliwack River valley but not for these six property owners.
The detailed slope stability assessment, due in 2026, is meant to provide preliminary cost estimates for “priority” mitigation and risk reduction options, with special attention to areas where there have been recent slides.
A report in 2022 for the regional district of the risk faced by the six properties — which deemed all unsafe to live in — suggested as part of the study due in 2026, consideration should be given to putting restrictive covenants on properties outlining the landslide risks.
The measure is important so that future buyers will be informed of the limitations before purchase, said the report by Cordilleran Geoscience.
On a late afternoon this month, Rampersad stood at the edge of his driveway, looking up at a large evergreen tree.
He said he always had an idea that he would light it up one Christmas.
When there is no traffic, you can hear the Chilliwack River. “It’s why I fell in love with the place,” he said.
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Married just recently, Rampersad said his thought had been that he would start a family at this home.
He was the first person in his family to buy a home, after saving for 10 to 12 years. His parents are immigrants to Canada from Trinidad.
Rampersad had moved a childhood trampoline onto the property but he knows it will not be used here.
Now, Rampersad is left paying a mortgage for a property that has no value on paper, that he has been told is not safe to live in, that he can’t rent out and where he has been told there is no way to reduce the landslide risk.
All these things are said in a steady, calm voice because, Rampersad says, he is a positive person.
But he acknowledged the ordeal has caused anxiety and depression, kept his mind buzzing, and hurt his health.
He said one of the property owners died recently.
On this afternoon, Rampersad stopped to watch a school bus go buy just below his property.
It’s a symbol.
It represents a life that will not be, at least not here, and the risk to people, not just to those who live below the escarpment but those who travel the road.
Rampersad said he still has a hard time believing there is not some way to reduce risk, and says the province should buy out his property and his neighbour’s, and at least find a way to reduce the risk to the road below.
He now stays with his wife in her place in Abbotsford but says he tries to stay here for a little time each week.
He remembers, more than two years ago now, when he says one of the officials at the meeting at Chilliwack city hall told him, “We will help you.”
Nobody has.
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