WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE!
Chinese believe water is good Feng Shui for a home. Why? Because water indicates wealth and Vancouver does have a lot of it, in the form of rain. However, to contractors, landscapers, engineers, this might not be so appealing. Heavy rain not only affects the jobsite but it could even damage work that has already been done. So ironically, it doesn’t work well with us.
In fact, we had the opportunity to experience firsthand, how much little droplets of water over a long period of time can do to a construction site. The project was at Upper Cheakamus in Squamish. During construction in those few weeks, we had lots of rain and the river behind the house, which by the way is part of Squamish River, flooded the banks next to our job site.
Water level rose to less than a foot from the top of the deck which we were working on and was dangerously close to overflowing. It was definitely too close for comfort. You can actually see how close to the brink the water level is in the picture!
Rather than to wait it out, Adrian, our Project Manager did what he thought was the next best thing to do. He established a flood evacuation plan for our workers as part of our safety procedures on site. To get to the job site, the workers have to cross two bridges. Because of the swollen river, the water line was extremely close to one of the bridges, almost to the point of flooding it. Coupled with strong winds and choppy water currents, the risk of the bridge getting washed out was tethering on very dangerous levels!
Exciting you’d think? Not when you have to take a risk like that daily! Nonetheless, true to our Alair Homes’ promise, we were determined to complete the job on time for the clients! No rain or flood was going to stop us. So Adrian’s plan was to have everyone get to the job site by walking off site following the train tracks that leads to town without having to cross the bridges.They would follow the tracks and at the same time keep a vigilant eye on the flag that was on site. This marker flag was put up to indicate the danger levels of the river. If the waterline should reach the maximum height of the flood marker flag, we would have no choice but to shut down the jobsite! But for now, the show must go on.
The next step was to take measures to protect the job site. Adrian and his team came up with a brilliant idea! There were plans in the original design to build a rock wall around the site. So that’s exactly what they did. Killed two birds with one stone! A solid rock wall was built as requested by the clients and the site was protected from the swollen river.
