Churches and other organizations are opening space for thousands of stranded people in the midst of flooding. 

Jeremiah Steberl is a manager at Mountain Road Ministries just 20 minutes outside of Hope, B.C. 

"We're here, we're safe but the highway is all out around us so we're not able to leave," says Steberl. "Thankfully we were all stocked up on supplies before all this happened. We're blessed that way."

His situation is better than thousands of people in the area that are now stranded from this flash flood. 

"We were hit with such a massive rainstorm and flooding all over the place. The Coquihalla River flooded, the Fraser River flooded. The community of Hope is stuck. There's no way to make it to Chilliwack or any other towns around them."

Steberl was able to safely take some video of all the damage the flooding caused in his area.

"We were hit early Sunday and now it's starting to work its way down the valley. I've never seen this many bridges and landslides all around on multiple highways, like the 1, 7, the 3 are shut down due to this. We're right off the exit off the highway. There's a bridge between us and Hope and us and Merritt that's out, so we're stuck."

Steberl went out to check how things were during the rain and noticed a family had left their RV in a campground beside the river. They couldn't move it so they chained it to a nearby tree.

"We watched the progress as the water rose, the RV started floating. We came back to it and it's gone."

Thankfully no one was in it during that time. 

Praying Over the Situation

"Yesterday they had helicopters coming in all throughout the day evacuating people that were stuck. There were hundreds of cars that were stuck on the highway."

In a state of emergency, the community of Hope has closed schools down and opened up the space, along with churches, for people who are stranded, according to Steberl. 

"It's a disaster. Just pray that we have a break in the weather, that the flooding will go down and people will be able to find food and shelter if they don't have it. It's getting colder and we just had snow this morning which just adds to the disaster. Pray for the lives of people." 

Related Stories