RADIO FREE KASLO, July 18, 2025

"There's floods in the desert where the cacti used the grow, tornadoes in the Empire State. I've forgotten all the weather that I thought I used to know, could be worse but it still ain't great."

     — Let's Get Naked in the Kootenays

Severe rain events are causing increasing numbers of catastrophic flooding events, around the world and right here in our mountainous backyard.

Today's show tackles this issue, against the sobering backdrop of recent tragedies in Texas Hill Country, North Carolina, Illinois, Iowa, France, Italy, and Uganda — as well as Johnsons Landing, Grand Forks, and elsewhere in BC.

Surely anything that can be done to mitigate potential flood risk in a municipality like Kaslo, many of its homes and virtually all its businesses built on an alluvial fan created over the centuries by the Kaslo River, is a no-brainer. 

Research from First Street Foundation points to “large” jump in risk for catastrophic flooding in the northwestern U.S., and by extension, BC. The way humans have developed natural landscapes, both inland and along rivers and coasts, means more rainwater remains unchecked and unabsorbed at the surface, turning life-giving rains into devastating floods. Our roads, sidewalks, buildings, , dams, agricultural practices — and strata RV parks — have eliminated many natural landscape features that would otherwise slow rainwater’s path across the land and absorb it deeply underground.

Kaslo's South Beach area is a floodplain, serving as a natural outlet for any flooding that may occur on the Kaslo River — in other words, a vital safety valve for Lower Kaslo, with its many homes, stores, and services.

If the current site of Lower Kaslo was untouched terrain and a developer came along and proposed to build houses and a downtown core here, it wouldn't be allowed. It's 2025. We know better today. But that urban development horse left the barn 125 years ago. All we can do now is anything and everything in our power to mitigate what appears to be a growing risk — and certainly refuse to allow any actions that increase that risk.