標題: How to prevent another collapse in the Fraser River [打印本頁] 作者: tiffiant 時間: 2011-7-6 07:45 標題: How to prevent another collapse in the Fraser River
How to prevent another collapse in the Fraser River
Expert calls for further monitoring of the area
News1130 Staff Jul 06, 2011 06:46:09 AM
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SURREY (NEWS1130) - More Fraser River monitoring needs to be done to prevent other infrastructure from collapsing on its banks in the future. An SFU expert says the water levels have been at extremely high levels for the last month.
Jeremy Vendetti is a Geography professor at the university who says it's absolutely possible that a BC Hydro Tower collapsed because of extreme soil erosion.
"The flow starts rising at about mid-May and then peaks towards the end of June and then starts falling off."
But that didn't happen this year. "It went up to a pretty high level, higher than the average peak flow on May 15th and it has stayed there, it looks like about six weeks now."
And that can undercut the pilings the towers near the banks are built on. He says a better job of monitoring and mapping erosion patterns needs to be done to prevent something like this from happening again.
"We need to know more about sediment in the Fraser River and that means the amount of sediment that's coming down through the channel, the amount of erosion and deposition that's happening in the channel."
Meantime, the Mayor of Coquitlam Richard Stewart says Monday's incident could have been a major calamity and claims BC Hydro had two weeks of warning, but no one warned his city or the City of Surrey.
How people coped
For some it was an exercise in patience that was tested by gridlock, for others whose offices were shut down because of the road closure it was a day that had them lose business.
But many people learned that when the unexpected happens, you do the best with what you have. "I work in construction and stuff like that just happens. It's a technical failure, you think you know what you're doing and it's under mind and it's underneath," says one man.
One BCAA employee tells us their lines lit up yesterday and despite widespread frustration "these things happen." She adds that Monday it was the hydro collapse and the day before there were issues on the SkyTrain.作者: tiffiant 時間: 2011-7-6 07:46
