West Van crews called out to break in large storm pipe

Municipal crews in West Vancouver were kept busy Tuesday night as the latest “atmospheric river” swept across the North Shore.

Crews were called out around 6 p.m. in West Vancouver to a report of water breaking through road asphalt in the 1900 block of Inglewood Drive.

A break in a large storm sewer was found to be the cause of the problem, said district spokeswoman Donna Powers – likely caused by heavy rain and extreme water flows. The street was closed Wednesday as staff looked into how to repair the break.

Crews also monitored manholes in the Ambleside area where sewage mains were in danger of backing up and overflowing because of heavy rain. Fortunately that didn’t happen Tuesday night.

Municipal crews didn’t encounter major issues in North Vancouver during the last rainstorm, which dumped about 75 millimetres of rain at the West Vancouver weather station between early Tuesday morning and the afternoon of Dec. 1. Metro Vancouver’s Capilano lakehead weather station recorded 119 mm of rain over two days between Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.

Grouse Mountain Regional Park remains closed and some trails in Capilano River, Lynn Headwaters and the Lower Seymour Conservation Region are also closed due to both dangerous conditions and damage caused by the recent series of storms.

Those closures include a bridge closed for damage repair on Headwaters Trail. A section of the Varley Trail will also be closed for stairs replacement starting Thursday.

A section of the upper Fisherman’s Trail between Circuit 8 and Spur 4 also remains closed due to a large washout.