Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Wild and wacky weather events like atmospheric rivers, derechos and bomb cyclones may seem new because of recent media coverage, but they’ve been known and named phenomena for quite some time in the history of meteorology and atmospheric science, speakers said Tuesday at the CatIQ Connect conference. What’s new is that they appear to be getting worse and more frequent as the climate changes. That means increasingly higher insured damage payouts for Canada’s P&C insurance industry.
Properties on P.E.I.'s North Shore took the brunt of post-tropical storm Fiona's battering last month, and where the sea rose up and swept things away, many owners are finding they were not insured. It's called a storm surge. Winds driving water onshore combine with a high tide to raise the sea well above normal levels. Surges of more than two metres were measured in several locations during Fiona. These surges combined with metres-high waves to wreak havoc on the shore. It's a risk for all coastal properties, but climate change has made it difficult to put a price on that risk, making storm surge insurance rare.
"We are considering this to be a catastrophic loss," Rob de Pruis, director of consumer and industry relations at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, told CTV National News. Floods in both Toronto and Calgary in 2013 prompted the Canadian insurance industry to offer what it called "overland flood coverage" starting in 2015. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates about 50 per cent of B.C. property owners have purchased it. "We do know and we have received reports of overland flood damage, sewer backups, even wind damage," de Pruis told CTV News Vancouver. "If you have been evacuated and you do have the overland flood coverage, you also have coverage for your additional living expenses."
