A witness reported seeing a man who's been missing since Sunday fall into the swollen Coquitlam River as he tried to rescue a dog, and was "immediately swept away," a local search and rescue manager said on Wednesday.
Ian MacDonald said Coquitlam Search and Rescue received the report about 59-year-old Robert Belding on Tuesday.
Belding's daughter, Jessica Belding, said she remains hopeful her dad will be found alive several days after his disappearance.
She said her father and his brother went to a friend's home that borders the Coquitlam River to help with a flooded basement. Her dad took his brother's dog for a walk, but didn't return, Belding said.
Coquitlam was one of the hardest-hit areas as an atmospheric river weather system rolled over southern B.C. last weekend, dumping more than 250 millimetres of rain on the Metro Vancouver community.
Belding said she and other family members began searching on Sunday night, and while they found the wet dog, there's been no sign of her father.
"We're pretty distraught," she said in an interview on her cellphone while she was out searching for her father on Wednesday.
"I think some of us are pretty numb because it just doesn't seem real. It's getting harder by the day."
She said her dad enjoys the outdoors and she's hopeful he wasn't too badly hurt, that he "managed to stay conscious," and is somewhere they haven't looked yet.
Belding said there is overwhelming support from community members asking her how can they help, though people should stay off the water for safety reasons.
"But if anyone is in the area and they want to help, just keeping an extra eye, taking that extra time to look while they're walking … just to see if they see any sign of someone somewhere, even in the bushes or on the side of the bank or anything."
MacDonald, a search manager with Coquitlam Search and Rescue, said the effort to find Robert Belding has included helicopter flyovers and a marine team that searched the area where the Coquitlam River flows into the Fraser River.
MacDonald said his team would be flying over the river again on Thursday or Friday.
He said the water level in the river is often low in summertime, flowing lower than a person's knees, but it turned into a "raging" torrent during the weekend downpours.
B.C.'s River Forecast Centre had issued a flood warning for the Coquitlam River, although it was downgrading to a flood watch by Sunday and has since been rescinded.
MacDonald said the water was still about 1.5 metres deep on Tuesday.
"It was very high. It was moving very fast, and it was full of debris," he said "There (were) trees and bits of wood and dead fish, all kinds of things in the water as well."
At least three deaths have been linked to the torrential rain over the weekend.
A woman was killed Saturday when her home was swept away in a mudslide on the outskirts of Coquitlam, and two others died on the west coast of Vancouver Island when a road washed out and an overflowing river submerged their vehicles.
Jonathan Helmus, director of utilities with the City of Coquitlam, said the rain was very intense, greater than a one-in-200-year event.
"We were the hardest hit in the Lower Mainland and it's the most significant storm we've ever seen," Helmus said in an interview on Wednesday.
The city had prepared by inspecting culverts and other critical infrastructure, sweeping roads and ensuring around-the-clock coverage by crews, he said, in addition to Coquitlam's longer-term planning for watershed management and climate change.
By comparison, Helmus said the atmospheric river that deluged southwestern B.C. in November 2021 brought 100 millimetres of rainfall to Coquitlam in 24 hours.
The District of North Vancouver said it is triaging resources after the community was "drenched" with nearly 350 millimetres of rain over the weekend.
A statement on the district's website said teams were focusing on immediate "life safety" issues stemming from the storm, as well as emergency repairs, debris removal and assessing the full extent of the damage.
"North Vancouver is well accustomed to heavy rain and stormy weather. However, no weather event in recent years has brought this much rainfall here," it said.
The district declared a local state of emergency on Sunday and ordered six homes evacuated in the Deep Cove neighbourhood, when an inspection found potential failure of private infrastructure that could create a public safety risk.
Images shared on social media on Saturday showed brown torrents of water pouring down on waterfront homes on Panorama Drive in Deep Cove.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
Nono Shen and Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
