'Somebody needs to be accountable': Sumas Prairie farmers angry over lack of flood warnings

Almost three weeks ago, icy chocolate-brown waves of floodwater overtook the U&D Meier Dairy farm on the Sumas Prairie with insidious speed, filling their basement, barns and fields as they slept.

When the twin Meier brothers who run the Abbotsford, B.C., farm bedded down on the night of Nov. 15 they were hopeful, as the flooding that had begun the previous day appeared to be receding.

But around 4 a.m. they were woken up by a banging. A steel drum had floated into their house entranceway and was knocking against a railing.

When Karl Meier tried to check his basement he was stopped by water. 

"I was terrified. All of our memories were down there," said Chelsea Meier, Karl's wife and co-farmer, and a mother of six children aged six to 17. Karl's brother Rudi lives across the driveway and that day was with three more children and two migrant workers.

"I was worried about our cows and getting my kids off the property," said Chelsea Meier.

She's angry that residents and farmers on the Sumas Prairie were given little or no official warning to get out as water overtook properties, eventually drowning farm animals and cutting off roads, leaving many people stranded.

"It's just not fair that none of us on the Sumas Flats were given notice — somebody needs to be accountable," she said. 

Across the border in Sumas, Wash., a siren sounded, notifying residents to evacuate their homes.

The City of Abbotsford opted not to issue an alert, knocking on doors instead.

"We got no warning," says Meier, 37, whose 100-acre farm is registered with a federally run premises identification system that she said was supposed to give agricultural properties warning of disasters like floods. 

As the sun rose, Meier flew her drone over her property, capturing surreal scenes of pumpkins and hay bales floating down the road. As the waters continued to rise, they eventually shifted the 1,000-kilogram antique snooker table in the family's basement.

She said the family called 911 and were told rescue would come, and to seek higher ground.

But she says they didn't get a call back from emergency services until around 14 hours later — and by then they'd escaped in a friend's boat.