North Vancouver business destroyed after rainstorm ravages Deep Cove

Caf/EH Coffee shop in North Vancouver’s Deep Cove neighbourhood is temporarily closed after rain pummelled B.C.'s South Coast over the weekend.

The coffee shop is in one of the neighbourhoods that was hardest hit by the record breaking and deadly atmospheric river – where the main commercial street was transformed into a raging river.

Iris Blanchett is the shop's general manager and she describes the state of the business as "a mess."

“It’s unfortunate. We spend a fair amount of our time at the café, we have all our regular customers, no one likes waiting (or) the uncertainty,” she tells CTV News.

Rain from the storm flooded the bottom area of the coffee shop forcing it to close. Now – staff is grappling with what comes next.

Water and debris destroyed the outdoor patio, kitchen, storage areas, bathrooms, and has left the shop without refrigeration.

Owners expect the café to be closed for at least a few weeks – while others in the area remain unscathed.

“It just is what it is unfortunately and where our building is situated, the fact that we are beside an alley, I don’t necessarily think there’s anything the city could have done”, co-owner Melissa Kinnoch says.

She was out of town when the storm hit but is thankful that the shop is repairable.

“There’s a lot of people within the community that were hit so much harder than we were. And really, you know, our impact is really just understanding what it’s going to take to rebuild,” she said.

Kinnoch says it’s a tough blow after what has already been a difficult year for the shop.

“With the rising cost of running a small business, the change in consumer priorities given the higher cost of living, it is challenging.”

'We can’t engineer ourselves out of climate change'

The District of North Vancouver says the atmospheric river is like nothing the region has experienced before.

“We had 344 millimetres of rainfall within 72 hours. To put that into perspective, in 2014, we had another very bad storm measured at the same location. We had 178 millimetres”, says Lisa Muri, long-time city councillor.

In 2014 – dozens of homes and businesses in the area suffered water damage and 20 homes in Lynn Valley had to be evacuated.

It led to the creation of the $2.5 million dollar disaster-mitigation project – covering projects like culvert replacements, debris basin upgrades, and protecting major waterways including the Gallant creek.

“We’re at the bottom of a mountain and significant amounts of debris came down in the creeks and clogged the grates on the culverts. We had inspected them that week because we knew this system was coming,” Muri says.

She also says the deluge is a stark reminder of the dangers that come with extreme weather.

“We can’t engineer ourselves out of climate change," she says.

North Shore Emergency Management described the atmospheric river as a “one-in-100-year event” but says destructive storms like this are becoming much more common.

The centre has been in daily communication with property owners – but crews are still surveying the damage and clearing out culverts and catch basins.

“We need time before we can transition into looking what the root causes are into some of the events that unfolded,” explains Peter Cohen, centre director and general manager of engineering.

The district remains focused on evaluating damage, and won’t rescind the local state of emergency or evacuation orders for six homes in the area until it is deemed safe.