Rebuild or retreat? B.C. communities face tough choices after catastrophic floods

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change. Keep up with the latest news on our Climate and Environment page.

The flowers at Martin O'Brien's former home in Grand Forks, B.C., are blooming, though no one lives there anymore to tend them.

The whole neighbourhood is being emptied, down to fire hydrants and every last piece of pipe above and below ground. Some houses have been moved, some picked apart by salvagers, and others, like O'Brien's, are slated to be torn down.

The 71-year-old has stopped by to save some pansies. 

"My pansies are gorgeous and tulips opening already," he said, digging them out and putting them in a pot for the small balcony of the new apartment he found in senior's housing a few minutes away.

O'Brien's home was one of close to 90 properties purchased or expropriated by the city after May 2018 floods that inundated the North Ruckle neighbourhood and most of downtown Grand Forks in B.C.'s southern Interior. 

After years of resisting, he was one of the last to leave, forced out in February when the city expropriated his property.

Rather than rebuild or protect the neighbourhood from future flooding, Grand Forks chose a path that's likely to become more common as sea levels rise and weather gets more extreme due to climate change. 

It's called "managed retreat," and it means the people, their neighbourhood and all the dreams they had for the land have to go — returning the area to a natural floodplain.

"It was kind of a shock to the whole neighbourhood to find that we were to be eliminated," O'Brien said, sitting on the porch of his former home. 

"I'd been here 30 years, but there were some who had been here their whole lifetime."

He is staying sanguine about the situation, but the process has been painful in Grand Forks. 

Now, other B.C. cities — including Abbotsford, which is set to announce its plan Monday — are being forced to consider managed retreat as they recover from last November's extreme flooding and mudslides, and prepare for what's to come.

As climate change threatens residents and infrastructure, more people will be forced to relocate. A 2019 study published in Nature estimated that, without urgent emissions cuts, some 300 million people are vulnerable to rising sea waters globally.