Hacker News Reader

Comment by iainctduncan | Hacker News Reader

Look, it's not "roads blocked". We're not talking "move the dirt and it'll be ok". The roads are GONE.

Bridges and huge sections of the most important highways are now rubble floating down rivers with nothing there anymore. This is in some of the most difficult terrain to rebuild in that you could have. People who know what they are talking about are saying we are short highways through the winter.

Here's some chopper footage: https://twitter.com/RobinMonks/status/1460690606410194949

City folks who think this was just some rain are nothing but evidence of how disconnected city people can become from the infrastructure on which they depend.

View on HN

> City folks who think this was just some rain are nothing but evidence of how disconnected city people can become from the infrastructure on which they depend.

This is a really funny angle. I would think the city people are keen on how internationally connected they are as a coastal port city. Vancouver also has international access to the US. Vancouver can get goods from Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, San Diego, Alaska, Mexico, China, etc. Highways to the East and North being out won’t change this whatsoever.

Isn’t it the rural folks who live inland who are dependent on port cities and road infrastructure that goes over the passes going to be the most screwed? Which crops/goods are being shipped from central Canada to Vancouver during the winter months?

Well, we have tons of folks in Van, where it basically snows a few times a year, who have never driven the roads through the rest of the province and have no clue how bad they can get in bad weather. And I'm sure every modern city has people who have never thought about how things get in their stores.

As to your assertion that highway closures won't change other access, this is nonsense. Take away the highways and you suddenly have WAY more that needs to get in and out the other ways, so the ferries and shipping traffic gets blocked up. I don't understand how anyone can believe "we'll just go the other way" is going to work fine. We don't have extra shipping works, boats, port slots, etc just waiting for twice the load or anything.

> I don't understand how anyone can believe "we'll just go the other way" is going to work fine. We don't have extra shipping works, boats, port slots, etc just waiting for twice the load or anything.

This is _already_ the direction these goods are coming in from. These so called idiotic city folk are likely going to be just fine. They might not be able to go to Whistler or whatever to go snowboarding for a year,

Hey don't listen to me, I only lived there for 35 years. But maybe listen to some professors of supply chain management instead:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bc-floods-rail-impact-1.625...

A large part of Vancouver's food comes from the Fraser Valley by truck -- through two municipalities that are now under water. The mayor of one of whom is already wondering whether farmers will be killing all their livestock.

It's a fuck of a lot worse than a cancelled snowboarding trip.

here you go, the food breakdown. Grain, meat, dairy all come into Van mostly from the east.

http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/Pla...

Thank you.

City folk in Vancouver proper are not going to be majorly affected, jobs related to the ports may have less hours but the supply chains typically starts, not terminate here. I feel for the valley and interior thou. Those areas are most definitely going to feel this for a while.

Oh wow, that's crazy. Thanks for sharing that.

That section in the Twitter link can be fixed fast is what I'm thinking but then I remember that B.C. is heavily unionized and my optimism fades.

How you managed to convert devastating footage of washed away bridges and roads into an attack on unionisation is something future historians are going to have to work very hard to explain.

If you lived there you'd understand. It's a common theme.

A constant theme among people who like to overwork and underpay their employees, yes.

It's just a chunk of freeway.

That's one section of like ten equally important road links that are in equally bad shape. That one could be fixed fast, sure, if it was the ONLY problem we were dealing with right now.

I still think it's two weeks max before those routes are passable with temporary measures even with unions.

I dunno, hope you know more about road engineering than I do. This is a section of the Coquihalla.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWWz8QCP4Mm/?utm_medium=copy_lin...

There's still a road to the left so that section is passsable almost immediately. They deal with mudslides and washouts fairly quickly most years. I realize though that some of these are more extensive than the past.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com