Princeton dodges flooding bullet, but water overwhelms local highway
Global News
While the dikes in town prevented any further flooding, water from the Similkameen River overflowed onto Highway 3 outside of Princeton, forcing it to shut down Wednesday,
The Tulameen River that flows through the Town of Princeton rose eight and a half feet over the last 24 hours, but it wasn’t high enough to breach dikes.
“We dodged a bullet,” Princeton mayor Spencer Coyne told Global News on Thursday. “Last night, we were supposed to have more flooding. So we’ve been lucky.”
Already ravaged by flooding two weeks ago, the small town was bracing for more water in the wake of a third atmospheric river that rolled across B.C.
“I was up most of last night,” Coyne said.
While Coyne, along with the town of roughly 3,100, is relieved. he said the community is not out of the woods just yet.
“We still have a lot of water that has come down from the top. It’s cooling off up there, which is a positive for us,” he said.
“So right now, I think we’re stable, I think we’re in a safe place,” he said. “We just need the water table to go down so that this water has somewhere else to go.”
While the dikes in town prevented any further flooding, water from the Similkameen River overflowed onto Highway 3 outside of Princeton, forcing it to shut down Wednesday,