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Goods arriving to be sold ahead of Christmas will be stuck on ships and delayed in reaching store shelves.
A vehicle is submerged in flood waters on a road in B.C.
The Canadian Press files.
The country's economic growth could be in danger due to the damage done by the floods and mudslides in British Columbia.
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The flooding in the Fraser Valley area could be one of the costliest natural disasters in Canada's history, both in terms of the bill to repair the damage and the broader costs to the country's economy, as containers laden with imports sit on anchored ships and shipyards at the Port
Kent Fellows, an economist with the University of Calgary School of Public Policy, said that this is a massive disruption and there are going to be costs in terms of both construction and lost economic activity. The extent of the economic impact will be determined by how quickly the Canadian Pacific Railway and The Canadian National Railway lines can be repaired.
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Entire cities and towns have been evacuated. The Coquihalla Highway has sustained critical damage. There are people stuck on highways in Hope, B.C., and there are animals at risk of being drowned in the flooding in the Sumas Prairie. The state of emergency was declared by the B.C. premier as authorities confirmed the death of one person.
There have already been dramatic and heartbreaking community level costs.
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The Port of Vancouver is the busiest port in Canada. The port didn't respond to a question about whether goods were able to leave the region.
The data from the last year shows that $300 to 350m is traded per day by road or rail between BC and the rest of Canada. That is $2- 2.5b per week, according to an economics professor at the University of Canada. Not to mention huge direct damages. This is huge.
Goods arriving in Canada to be sold ahead of Christmas will likely be stuck on ships and delayed in reaching store shelves.
There is a product sitting in the harbour that can't leave. Michael Graydon, CEO of Food, Health and Consumer Products of Canada, said that it was too late to change the port of departure.
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There are ships in the harbour that can't unload and they can't get the product out of the city. Graydon said that it would probably take another week until the flow gets back to normal.
A road sign is surrounded by flood waters as a farm is pictured in the background.
The Canadian Press files.
Canada's mining companies, agricultural producers and commodities exporters are forced to ship their goods through the U.S. due to delays in shipping overseas.
Teck Resources said in a statement that it was moving trains from the city to a terminal in the north. Natashia Stinka said that Canpotex will ship more of the crop nutrient through its smaller terminals in Portland, Oregon.
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The University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business says that the Port of Vancouver is the main import port for goods entering Canada.
Heaver said that the port being cut off from the rest of the country will cause more shortage than expected, and that the damage to roads and railway lines will add to congestion at the port.
The western corridor is the company's "lifeblood."
He said that all commodities flow through that.
A semi-truck is stuck in the flooded Sumas Prairie in B.C.
The photo was taken by Taehoon Kim.
Both the country's major railways said they had suffered damages as a result of the flooding, but did not give a time frame for when the lines would be completely repaired.
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The mud slides and washout that interrupted the movement of railway traffic through southern B.C. continues to be worked on by crews, according to a statement from a spokesman for the rail company. The situation is still impacting inbound and outbound traffic from the east and north of Kamloops. The crews are working quickly.
The company has deployed crews and equipment to the region and is working to repair damage to the railway lines as quickly as possible.
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The TransCanada Highway and Falls Creek, B.C. are affected by multiple track outages. The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is working closely with the Canadian Pacific in the response to the situation.
The head of Canada's largest grocery chain warned that the flooding in B.C. could stress supply chains.
We will have to see, given the weather in British Columbia over the last couple of days. Weston said on the earnings call that they thought it would, but only for a short time.
A resident walks through the flooded Sumas Prairie in B.C.
The photo was taken by Taehoon Kim.
Weston said that the ports in western Canada and the northwestern U.S. have kept Canada from experiencing the worst of the supply chain crunch.
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Over the last few months, the northwestern ports have been performing better than the southwestern ports. Weston said that the Canadian offshore supply chain has not been disrupted like it has in the U.S.
There is a chance of a fuel shortage if the problem continues for another week. Four days ago, the Trans Mountain line shut down due to the extreme weather.
Trans Mountain said in a statement Wednesday that it had conducted an aerial survey of the affected areas and more on-the-ground analysis is needed to determine if there is work required to repair or reestablish protective cover where the pipe has been exposed due to flooding.
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The line is not open.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy in Chicago, said that a four-day shutdown of the Trans Mountain pipeline isn't showing up in fuel prices yet, possibly because drivers are.
We could be seeing more of an impact if we go beyond six or seven days.
Natural gas prices at the Northwest Sumas hub at the Washington-British Columbia border jumped about 38 per cent to their highest since late October after the Westcoast line was reduced due to flooding. That was the biggest daily percentage gain since the February freeze.
The costliest natural disaster in Canada in 2016 was the wildfires in Fort McMurray, with an estimated insurance loss of $3.58 billion. The Insurance Bureau of Canada said that the B.C. towns were devastated by the fires that caused insurance damages of over $60 million.
There are files from the news agency.
Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com
Email: jedmiston@postmedia.
