Les Martson said he could see furniture floating in the basement of a friend’s home when he surveyed the site of flooding near Ocean Falls, B.C., along the province’s central coast.
Martson said Wednesday that the pounding B.C.’s Central Coast has taken from a series of atmospheric rivers is the worst he can remember.
The community is among the wettest in Canada with an average of 4,390 millimetres of rain per year, but Martson said the current rain is unprecedented.
“You have to understand we are in the middle of a rainforest here.”
The Central Coast Regional District issued a state of local emergency on Tuesday for the hamlet of Martin Valley, a few kilometres from Ocean Falls, due to the possible landslide and flood risk.
It issued an evacuation order for some homes and businesses in the community and an evacuation alert for dozens more, telling residents they need to prepare to leave quickly.
“Given the current saturated soils, unstable slopes, and ongoing weather impacts, the CCRD engaged a geotechnical specialist on Mar 17, 2026, to evaluate landslide risk,” the district said in a statement on Wednesday.
It said professional advice recommended the evacuation order due to the unknown level of life-safety risk.
Steve Emery, who represents the area at the regional district, said the flooding has damaged at least two of the approximately 40 homes in the area, as well as local infrastructure.
No one has been hurt.
However, Emery said most of the 21 residents in the evacuation area have stayed in their homes, while a few have gone to the evacuation centre in Ocean Falls.
Martson said he has helped two people leave the area, driving them by truck through the night to his business, the Old Bank Inn, where officials have set up the evacuation centre.
He said most of the homes are used seasonally after being built in the 1950s and 1960s, when Ocean Falls had much a larger population, while the remaining residents, many of them elderly, are skeptical of what comes next.
Emery said a helicopter from the Ministry of Forests has been hired to assess the stability of the slope near the area under evacuation order following an earlier slide in December.
He said it’s unclear if weather will permit the assessment.
He said he believes some residents have stayed behind, despite the order, because they have been there for many years.
“So, if you go to Ocean Falls, just about every place in Ocean Falls is in a slide zone, OK,” he said.
“It’s something that you kind of live with 365 days of the year, that a slide could come down at any time,” Emery said.
Martson said residents in the community, which can only be accessed by boat or by plane, are self-sufficient with plenty of food stored.
“We are a community that takes case of our own, and there’s nobody who is going to go hungry or thirsty.”
The BC River Forecast Centre downgraded a flood watch on Wednesday for the Central Coast region that includes Ocean Falls to a high streamflow advisory.
The centre issued a flood warning for the North Shore Mountains and Metro Vancouver tributaries as well as areas including Squamish, Pemberton and the Fraser Valley.
Figures released by Environment Canada show that Lennard Island along the western shore of Vancouver Island received 333 millimetres between Sunday and 11 a.m. on Wednesday.
Kennedy Lake Highway Station outside of Ucluelet, on Vancouver Island received 299 millimetres during the same period, while Estevan Point had reported 295 millimetres by 11 a.m. that day.
Fewer rainfall warnings remain up Wednesday, although the drenching will continue for the west side of Vancouver Island, the Fraser Valley and northern sections of Metro Vancouver through to Friday.
Environment Canada said the potential for flood is increasing as the freezing level rises to 2,500 metres, melting the snowpack.
It said another 100 to 120 millimetres of rain could fall in those areas, with higher amounts possible near the mountains.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2026.
Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press
