Narhwal Week, episode 3: Can Canada survive flooding?

This is the third episode in a weeklong collaboration between The Big Story and The Narwhal, an award-winning non-profit publication that provides in-depth coverage of climate issues across Canada.

More than 200 million people could be displaced from their homes worldwide in the next few decades as extreme weather events become more frequent and intense. The biggest climate change risk in Canada? Flooding.

Just last year, floods in B.C. wiped out roads, killed five people and left thousands stranded without food and water. In the Prairies, reporter Drew Anderson talked to people in the tiny, flood-prone community of Lehigh, Alta., who are being bought out of their homes before rising waters destroy them.

Government reports say that Canadians need to learn to live with water — but what exactly does that mean?

“More than 6.5 million Canadians live along coastlines and all the others live next to water. Basically the cities are built along
rivers. If they’re inland, they’re built along the coastlines if they’re on the coast. So these things are going to happen,
storms are going to get worse, rainfall is going to get worse and it’s going to impact a lot of people,” said Anderson.

You can read Drew’s story, “This was our forever home”: floods, climate change and the end of one Alberta community, here.

Read more of Drew’s stories here.

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You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.