There will be a in southwestern B.C. for the next 10 to 11 days, Deputy Premier Mike Farnworth announced during a briefing Friday.
"People in southwestern British Columbia, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast will be limited to 30 litres per visit to the gas station," he said. "There will be temporary shortages, but we are taking this important step to main maintain our supply of gasoline. Under the order, gas stations will be required to ensure their gasoline reserves last until Dec. 1 of this year."
Emergency and essential vehicles will still have unrestricted access to gas. The order was given under the powers of the province's state of emergency.
The Trans Mountain pipeline, which supplies much of the Lower Mainland with fuel, was due to the flooding situation.
There's no indication of any oil spillage and "every effort is being made to safely restart the pipeline as promptly as possible," the company said in a Thursday.
In the meantime, Farnworth said the province is working to bring in more gasoline by truck and barge from Alberta as well as several states in the U.S.
Farnworth would not confirm if B.C. was running out of gas. He also said police would not be patrolling the pumps and urged people to understand and cooperate with the restrictions.
Gas stations in Greater Victoria are experiencing a shortage of supply, with many of them running out of fuel and waiting for shipments, and drivers aren't helping by panic-buying at the pumps.
After a portion of the Malahat highway got washed out, some people apparently raced to gas up their vehicles fearing there would be a shortage. Experts say that run on fuel actually created a fuel shortage.
"There is product available," Eric Gault, director of operations for Peninsula Co-op, a food and gas co-op, told 麻豆影视 Vancouver Island. "We just can't get it through the bottleneck at this time."
Gault says there is plenty of fuel on the island, but the problem is current conditions are making it difficult for trucks to get over the Malahat from storage facilities in Chemainus and Nanaimo.
Farnworth issued a second order on Friday, limiting travel on severely affected highways to essential vehicles only.
Non-essential travel is restricted on the following routes: Highway 99 from the Lillooet River Road junction to the BC Hydro Seton Lake campsite, Highway 3 from the junction of Highway 5 in Hope to the west entrance to Princeton and Highway 7 from the junction of Highway 9 in Agassiz to the junction of Highway 1 in Hope.
"There are legitimate and essential reasons for people to be traveling through the restricted areas," he said. "Examples include the commercial transport of goods, moving essential supplies like food and water, fuel and medical supplies, transporting livestock and agricultural supplies."
As more roads are repaired and the backlog of essential travel of cleared, Farnworth said, restrictions will ease.
The option of destroying homes to build a massive levee in flood-stricken Abbotsford, B.C., is no longer on the table, according to the city's mayor.
"I need to be very clear: The levee option is no longer being considered and will not be built," Mayor Henry Braun said during an update Friday.
Crews will instead build a temporary replacement dike to shore up an existing one with the hope of preventing flood waters from overtaking the Sumas Prairie.
Late on Thursday, Braun told reporters the city was looking at enlisting the help of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel to build a 2.5-kilometre levee along Highway 1, which would have meant expropriating and demolishing 22 homes.
A total of 120 CAF members are being deployed to assist Abbotsford.
BOIL WATER ADVISORY IN SUMAS PRAIRIE
A boil water advisory has also been issued for the Sumas Prairie area.
In an released Thursday, the City of Abbotsford said water supply will be restored to the existing isolated Sumas Prairie water distribution system.
The city said water will be introduced "pipe by pipe as roads become accessible and we can confirm there are no breaks."
The boil water advisory is expected to be in place for "several days."
The city said no other areas of the Abbotsford water system are affected and the water "remains safe to drink."
Officials say work is beginning to assess homes damaged by floods in one city in B.C., as the province continues to reel from a devastating storm on Monday.
In an on Friday, officials in Merritt said 鈥渢rained inspectors鈥� are being brought into the city to begin 鈥渁 rapid damage assessment鈥� of the properties that were directly affected by the floods.
The city says once the assessments are complete, homes will be tagged green, yellow or red. A process will be put in place to allow those with green-tagged homes to return to collect possessions and 鈥渂egin remediation efforts.鈥�
Crews in Merritt are also conducting a series of inspections and tests on the city's drinking water system.
For now, a city-wide evacuation order remains in place.
CAF BOOTS ON THE GROUND
Federal Defence Minister Anita Anand said over the next 30 days "and possibly longer if needed," CAF will be in B.C. to help the province through the current crisis.
"They can evacuate people to safety, offer help to those who are vulnerable, stranded or in distress, support critical provincial supply chains, investigate the impacts of flooding to help B.C.'s planning of relief efforts, and assist local authorities in protecting critical infrastructure," she said.
Anand said up to 350 personnel are ready to be deployed to B.C. from Edmonton as part of the immediate response unit.
Two CAF-operated helicopters are also conducting damage assessment in the region.
Anand said there are also "thousands more members on standby," who are ready to help if needed.
Some schools in the province's Lower Mainland are planning to reopen next week.
In a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday evening, the Chilliwack School District said it is planning a "full return to school" on Monday.
The school district said it will "communicate information regarding return to school, including viable bus routes, to all families" on Sunday.
"The District understands that keeping schools closed for the past four days has negatively impacted some families in our community," the post reads.
Schools in the Chilliwack district remain closed on Friday.
Dairy farms in flood-affected areas have also been devastated.
Holger Schwichtenberg, the chair of B.C. Dairy in Agassiz, B.C., told CTV's Your Morning that, while his farm was untouched by the storm, he has spent the last several days helping his colleagues and neighbours.
"We've seen people whose farms -- their livelioods -- 60 years of work are [now] under six feet of water," he said. "And they received the evacuation order which means you have to leave, you have no choice."
He said a lot of animals from these farms have ended up on farms in Chilliwack.
But, Schwichtenberg said the animals left behind desperately need food and water and will need to be rescued once floodwaters are low enough.
He also said because trucks are unable to get to the farms to pick up milk, many farms have had to dump their product.
TRANSPORT CANADA EXTENDS NOTAM
Transport Canada says a notice to airmen (NOTAM) issued on Thursday, has been extended.
In a tweet Friday, the agency said the NOTAM, which restricts all aircraft including drones from flying lower than 300 metres between Abbotsford Airport and Chilliwack Airport has been extended until midnight PST on Nov. 24.
The agency is also urging the public to 鈥渁void unnecessary travel鈥� to Chilliwack Airport at this time.
INSURANCE ISSUES
As damage assessments continue across B.C., one expert says getting insurance to cover the flood damages from the storm might be difficult for some homeowners.
Jason Thistlethwaite is a professor at the University of Waterloo whose research focuses on the economic impacts of extreme weather and climate change.
He told CTV's Your Morning that he is 鈥渃oncerned鈥� that a lot of the flooding in B.C. has occurred in areas deemed to be high-risk.
"Insurance is generally not available in those areas," he said.
He said the type of insurance coverage available for the type of damage seen in B.C. is known as "overland flood insurance."
"The first thing that I would do is I'd be going to take a look at the fine print of your insurance policy, just to take a look at what coverage is available for that overland part of flooding," Thistlethwaite said.
He said anyone who may be unsure of their coverage should contact their insurance company.
Thistlethwaite said 鈥渦nfortunately,鈥� there are many high-risk areas in Canada.
"We have approximately 10 per cent of Canadians [who] live in these areas, and insurance is unlikely to be available for that type of flooding," he said. "So I'm a little concerned we're going to have some issues over the next few weeks as people reach out to try and understand and are likely to find that they're not covered for the type of damage that's occurred."
With files from 麻豆影视's Brendan Strain, Michele Brunoro, Ian Holliday, Sarah Turnbull and Alyse Kotyk
