Support Amid the Storm
AIRLIFT Nurses working at Hope's Fraser Canyon Hospital were stuck in the flood-stricken community for three days in November after mudslides washed away main access roads. Top left: Chopper arrives in Hope on Nov. 17. Bottom left: Dorina Quik and BCNU steward Rachel Kampen in chopper. Centre: Flood damage to Highway 1. Right: Nerisse Cranmore surveys the flood damage.
Member solidarity was the silver lining in dark clouds that brought floods to BC
When Meg McCusker was roused from her sleep, she soon realized this Monday would not be a normal start to the workweek.
"My neighbour woke me up at an ungodly hour and I thought to myself, 'somebody had better be dying,'" she recalls.
Rain had been falling all weekend, however, and the nurse soon discovered her house was flooding.
McCusker lives in a low-lying part of Chilliwack. She, along with thousands of others in communities like Abbotsford and Princeton in the south, and Merritt in the Interior were among the hardest hit by an atmospheric river that flowed over BC and the Pacific Northwest in November, bringing heavy rains and intense storms.
"I was fortunate in that we only had about four inches of water, but it was sewage backing up into the basement," she says. "Luckily, my husband is very handy, and he used a pump we have for draining our pool to pump out the sewage that was coming up through our basement shower drain."
McCusker is a seasoned nurse, so she's no stranger to unexpected events. She currently works as a steward-at-large, leading steward teams and advocating for members at Mission Memorial Hospital, Fraser Canyon Hospital in Hope, and at private long-term care sites across BCNU's Fraser Valley region. But she knew it would be a long day ahead.
"I called in at 6 a.m. and took a personal leave day," she says. "I took Tuesday off as well, as I have twin toddlers and a 13-year-old son, and we needed to get our house cleaned quickly."
The huge weather event brought heavy downpours, which lasted from Nov. 13 to 15, and forced thousands to leave their homes, while others became trapped on cut-off roads. Several towns were completely cut off and mudslides destroyed parts of major highways, leading to the evacuation of the entire city of Merritt, as well as further evacuations in the Fraser Valley, the Interior and Vancouver Island.
The provincial government declared a state of emergency and more than 500 Canadian Armed Forces members were deployed across the southwest, central coast and Vancouver Island to assist with the massive clean-up and response as rains continued to fall through the month.
Nerisse Cranmore had driven through the rain just hours before McCusker was woken by the flooding. The young nurse works at Hope's Fraser Canyon Hospital. She had heard news reports that Highway 1, her usual route, had become blocked by a landslide, so she left her Chilliwack home and drove to her Sunday night shift using Highway 7, the alternate route on the north side of the Fraser River.
"The road is not very well lit and there are quite a lot of mountains there, so I was concerned there would be a landslide on Highway 7 too," she remembers. "Sure enough, the drive was terrible. There was a lot of water pooling on the road and I was just a little bit anxious about getting to work on time for my shift in the emergency department."
"We had no idea what to expect and realized we would not be equipped to respond to major trauma cases with the staff we had."
At the hospital Cranmore spoke with patient care coordinator Prashant Raval, and learned she was one of the last people who made it to work that day.
Raval was in the middle of a three-day rotation. He had finished his second shift at 7 p.m. and was driving home to Chilliwack. He knew Highway 1 was closed and took Highway 7 instead, only to find that it too had been washed out just before he could make it out.
"I left Hope at 7:05 but there was a huge traffic line up so I turned around and went back to the hospital thinking I could sleep," he reports. "Thankfully, some staff who had left at 6:45 were able to make it out." It could have been much worse for Raval. "A nurse who left at 6:55 ended up being trapped on the highway between mudslide and was stuck in her car for 16 hours."
Raval soon learned that an LPN who works in the ER was unable to make it in, and two other staff were caught between mudslides. It was then that he realized it was going to be a very long day.
"I went to work in the ER, where there were only three nurses on the floor. Nerisse is a new RN with less than one year experience in the ER, and another, Dorina, is an LPN who has just finished her orientation," he explains. "So it was me, a physician and three other nurses on the floor when managers declared a Code Orange at 9 p.m."
The first casualties soon began to arrive.
"That was the dirtiest I've ever seen people in my whole life," recalls Cranmore, when describing a group of patients that arrived by ambulance. "There was a whole family of five covered head to toe in mud, and all of them are walking and talking except for one, a younger boy we were quite concerned about."
The doctor suspected a basal skull fracture and determined the patient needed to be transferred to Children's Hospital for a CT scan.
"But we were told there was like no way out of Hope at that point in time," Cranmore says. "We realized that we were stuck there indefinitely taking care of these patients, so that was that was quite difficult to reckon with."
Fraser Canyon Hospital is a modest 10-bed community facility that provides 24/7 emergency stabilization and care, general medicine, and ambulatory care services. As news reports of wide-spread flooding and casualties came in from around the region, Raval was worried about what might come through the hospital's doors next.
"We had no idea what to expect and realized we would not be equipped to respond to major or numerous trauma cases with the staff we had," he says. "If they came in, we would be drowned."
"I've never had so many people in my emergency waiting rooms as I did that night - there were like 30 people sleeping on the floor."
To make matters worse, there was a power outage in Hope and many of the residents began coming to the hospital.
"They needed a place to sleep that was warm," Cranmore explains. "There were people sleeping in their vehicles and I've never had so many people in my emergency waiting room as I did that night – there were like 30 people sleeping on the floor."
Fortunately, Raval and others were able to work with Heath Emergency Management of BC staff to establish a shelter. "We were in phone contact with Fraser Health management and getting pulled in every direction for 14 hours," Raval recalls.
"We were the only building in Hope with power, but we also had to be mindful of COVID, and limit the number of people to avoid overcrowding and maintain social distancing. There were so many people waiting outside, but we could only allow entry to those who were fragile and could not handle of the cold. Others had to go to a local church," he reports.
As Sunday rolled into Monday, the nurses realized that Hope was completely cut off from the rest of the province, and they would need to ration their supplies.
"Fraser Hope Lodge is attached to our hospital. All of those residents take a lot of daily medications, and they were needing to come upstairs and use our stores to provide those residents with medications," explains Cranmore. "We had to alter some people's pain medications because we just didn't have what they needed. That was concerning because we get so many medications from Chilliwack, and they weren't able to deliver anything – we even had to be cautious with our linens.
"The whole experience has definitely brought to light just how limited our resources are, and the need to be better prepared when something like this happens."
Power was restored to all of Hope by early Tues. Nov. 16, but roads to the town were still impassable.
"Dorina, Nerisse and I all live in Chilliwack, and we had been stuck in Hope for three days – we were living in the hospital," says Raval. "We would find a bed wherever we could, and security staff and others from Chilliwack needed to be given places to sleep."
Meanwhile, McCusker was doing all she could under the circumstances to help the stranded members.
"One Fraser Hope Lodge member I spoke with on Tuesday was fully traumatized, she didn't know how she was getting home, nobody had made any arrangements and they were barely being fed," she says. "Prashant bought meals for staff out of his own pocket."
McCusker contacted a Fraser Health manager who was trying to formulate a plan, and she offered the use of a light plane piloted by her friend's husband. Unfortunately, the Hope airport runway had five inches of water on it.
"I also suggested we charter a helicopter, and I found a pilot so we could charter a flight at 7 a.m. Wednesday, but Fraser Health had since booked their own helicopter," she reports.
Relief came Wednesday morning. "It must have been on Tuesday at midnight, when my manager texted a co- worker and me to let us know we we're getting out the next morning because the forecast looked good enough to fly," Cranmore recalls.
McCusker says the flight could not have come soon enough.
"I understood that if people in Fraser Health knew there was union pressure and involvement, they would do something – our members were trapped up there for two days and that was just unacceptable."
"More accidents will happen, and our ER and hospital needs to be fully staffed."
She says Fraser Health later began organizing flights to Hope and posting updates using Facebook.
In the meantime, McCusker did her best to ensure that Hope nurses, maintenance and housekeeping staff are better prepared for further disruptions. "I drove up on Nov. 21 with a friend who volunteers with United Way, and we provided 125 meals to fully stock the staff fridges at the site."
Some members are still traumatized from the events of Nov. 14 to 16, she says. "One long-term care member who was involved with the pediatric patient is now off on leave, as she was not expecting to deal with that."
Despite the hardships of that weekend, Raval is grateful for the efforts of everyone involved following the initial disaster. "Managers were available, public health nurses were redeployed and willing to help out wherever they could, and an ER doctor from Squamish came in to relive the one doctor in Hope. There was a really good team approach overall."
Many lessons for improvement have also been learned. "On-call shifts are not being filled in rural areas," he noted. "On-call staff should be available every night from 7p.m. to 7a.m. and they need to be able to stay in the hospital so that they are available if needed in disasters like this. And there should be a Code Orange bin with supplies and signage – I'm working on that."
Raval says the floods are a wake-up call about the health staffing challenges that have existed in rural and remote communities long before climate crisis events like this one. "Sometimes we don't have baseline staff - even after a Code Orange like this I still find myself working alone when it's busy. More accidents will happen and our ER and hospital needs to be fully staffed." •
UPDATE (Winter 2021)