ABBOTSFORD – Fast-rising floodwaters in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley are forcing families and farmers to escape a situation many have seen before, after atmospheric river weather systems sent cross-border outflows pouring into the province from Washington state.
Abbotsford, B.C., resident Spencer Cording surveyed the floodwaters along the U.S. border on Thursday and said it’s the same situation as 2021.
“It’s kind of ridiculous. We’ve had four years to prepare and it doesn’t look like a whole lot’s been done,” he said, blaming a lack of cross-border communication between authorities.
Major highways out of the Lower Mainland remained shut, while evacuation alerts and orders were expanded on Thursday as the floodwaters rose, and residents waited to see whether it would be as bad, or worse, than four years ago, when catastrophic flooding of the Sumas Prairie caused billions in damage.
Fellow Abbotsford resident Jessica Krins was among evacuees told to leave their homes around 11 p.m. Wednesday.
She said watching the floodwaters was “bringing back PTSD from last time.”
Krins is a veteran of Abbotsford evacuations, having been forced out of her home twice in 2021, when she said she was given 15 minutes to get out and people were “banging on the door.”
“It comes fast,” she said. “It sucks because it’s just a waiting game, just waiting to see what happens.”
She said she and others talk about what happened in 2021 all the time. “We’re like, ‘oh, remember when it flooded 4 years ago? Will it ever happen again?’ And here we are, happening again.”
The City of Abbotsford, which declared a local state of emergency on Wednesday, expanded it’s evacuation order on Thursday, with residents of about 350 properties told to get out immediately, while hundreds more are on evacuation alert.
B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said Thursday that more than 160 farms are in the way of those floodwaters and are either on evacuation order or alert, although the poultry, cows and hogs are considered safe.
David Campbell with the BC River Forecast Centre said the water from the Nooksack River in Washington will continue to spill into the Fraser Valley into Friday.
He said the series of atmospheric rivers dumped up to 150 millimetres of rain in some areas since Tuesday.
Campbell said another wet system is coming in on the weekend, but that will give a little bit of time to create room in many of B.C.’s rivers that are near or at flood stage.
“When it comes to the Nooksack, obviously it’s a more complex system and clearing the water various flat terrain around the Sumas as well as the Nooksack flood plain takes a little bit more time.”
Further to the southeast, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen ordered the evacuation of the Princeton Municipal Campground due to “the immediate danger to life safety caused by flooding.”
The regional district declared a state of local emergency on Thursday as water levels rose in several rivers in its jurisdiction.
At one point in the deluge on Wednesday every major highway between the B.C. Lower Mainland and its Interior was cut off by flooding or slides, but that is gradually improving.
Janelle Staite, with the B.C. Ministry of Transportation, said during a briefing on Thursday that cleanup and assessment was a priority.
“I’m happy to report that while there are road impacts, we are not near the state of infrastructure damage that we experienced during the 2021 event”
North Shore Rescue said in a statement that it helped rescuers in Chilliwack, B.C., pull a group of five people and their four dogs off an island in the middle of the Chilliwack River as floodwaters rose around them.
The agency said the rescue took several hours early Thursday as the group and their animals had to be hoisted to safety by helicopter.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 11, 2025.
