When a historic storm brought flooding and landslides to southern British Columbia, Aynsley D’Ottavio relied on acts of kindness to help get her back home to Chilliwack
When Aynsley D’Ottavio left her home in Chilliwack, B.C., to tour Quinnipac
University in November, she never imagined how difficult it would be to get
back home.
The Fraser Valley Rush defenceman and her mother made the trip to
Connecticut with the intent of touring the university for one day before
returning home.
“We got in [to Connecticut] that night and my dad texted my mom and said
that a storm was going on [back home],” D’Ottavio says. “It didn’t really
affect us too much because we do live in B.C. and there’s a lot of rain.”
Not thinking much of the precipitation, they went to sleep after the long
travel day in preparation for the tour in the morning. The next day, they
continued to receive updates about the unprecedented amount of rain they
were getting back home.
“I toured the school all day, and kind of was hearing about everything as
the day went on,” D’Ottavio says. “And then flying home that night, [that’s
when we] found out that it got really bad.”
A historic rainstorm brought some B.C. communities nearly a month’s worth
of rain within the span of 48 hours. The storm broke dozens of rainfall
records and caused devastating landslides that closed almost every major
highway in southern B.C.
After an already rain-filled September and October in the Fraser Valley,
the latest dump overwhelmed creeks and rivers that wouldn’t normally be
flood risks. Entire regions of the Fraser Valley became ingulfed by
floodwaters. About 20,000 people were forced to flee their homes due to the
storm.
The original plan was for D’Ottavio’s father to pick her and her mother up
at the airport to drive the 16-year-old to Langley so she could join the
Rush to face the Northern Capitals. While laid over in Toronto, D’Ottavio
found out that the storm…