Day: November 16, 2021

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Canada Landslides Leave 1 Dead, 2 Missing, Port’s Rail Access Cut

The port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest, said on Tuesday that all rail access had been cut by floods and landslides farther east that killed at least one person and left two others missing.

Two days of torrential rain across the Pacific province of British Columbia touched off major flooding and shut rail routes operated by Canadian Pacific Rail and Canadian National Railway, Canada’s two biggest rail companies.

“All rail service coming to and from the Port of Vancouver is halted because of flooding in the British Columbia interior,” port spokesperson Matti Polychronis said.

At least one person was killed when a mudslide swept cars off Highway 99 near Pemberton, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the northeast of Vancouver.

Search and rescue crews were combing through the rubble for signs of survivors or additional casualties, officials said.

Vancouver’s port moves C$550 million ($440 million) worth of cargo each day, ranging from automobiles and finished goods to essential commodities.

The floods temporarily shut down much of the movement of wheat and canola from Canada, one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, during a busy time for trains to haul grain to the port following the harvest.

This year drought has sharply reduced the size of Canada’s crops, meaning a rail disruption of a few days may not create a significant backlog, a grain industry source told Reuters.

Del Dosdall, senior export manager at grain handler Parrish & Heimbecker, said he expected some rail service could be restored by the weekend. Another industry source said he expected the shutdown to last weeks.

Floods have also hampered pipelines. Enbridge shut a segment of a British Columbia natural gas pipeline as a precaution.

The storms also forced the closure of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which carries up to 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Alberta to the Pacific Coast.

Copper and coal miner Teck Resources Limited said the floods had disrupted movement of its commodities to its export terminals, while potash exporter Canpotex said it was looking for alternatives to move the crop nutrient overseas.

Directly to the south of British Columbia, in Washington state, heavy rains forced evacuations and cut off electricity for more than 150,000 households on Monday. The U.S. National Weather Service on Tuesday issued a flash flood warning in Mount Vernon, Washington, “due to the potential for a levee failure.”

Some areas of British Columbia received 20 centimeters (8 inches) of rain on Sunday, the amount that usually falls in a month.

Authorities in Merritt, some 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Vancouver, ordered all 8,000 citizens to leave on Monday as river waters rose quickly, but some were still trapped in their homes on Tuesday, said city spokesman Greg Lowis.

Snow blanketed the town on Tuesday and some cars could be seen floating in the flood waters still up to 1.22 meters (4 feet) high. The towns of Chilliwack and Abbotsford ordered partial evacuations.

Rescuers equipped with diggers and body-sniffing dogs started dismantling large mounds of debris that have choked highways.

The landslides and floods come less than six months after wildfires gutted an entire town, as temperatures in the province soared during a record-breaking heat dome.

Source: Voice of America

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Yellen Extends Date for Potential Debt Default to December 15

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress Tuesday that she believed she would run out of maneuvering room to avoid the nation’s first-ever default soon after December 15.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Yellen said that she believed Treasury could be left with insufficient resources to keep financing the government beyond December 15.

Yellen’s new date is 12 days later than the December 3 date she provided in a letter to Congress on October 18, after Congress had just passed a $480 billion increase in the debt limit days before as a stopgap measure.

As she has done in the past, Yellen urged Congress to deal with the debt limit quickly to remove the possibility of a potential default on the nation’s obligations.

“To ensure the full faith and credit of the United States, it is critical that Congress raise or suspend the debt limit as soon as possible,” Yellen wrote to congressional leaders.

Yellen has repeatedly warned that failure to deal with the debt limit and allowing the government to default would be catastrophic and likely push the country into a recession.

In her letter, Yellen said that the extra time reflected more up-to-date estimates of government revenues and spending and was impacted by the infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed into law Monday. That legislation requires the transfer by Treasury of $118 billion by December 15 into the Highway Trust Fund.

Yellen said that while she had a “high degree of confidence she will be able to finance the U.S. government through Dec. 15” and complete the Highway Trust Fund transfer, there are scenarios where the government will be left with insufficient resources to finance operations beyond that date, she said.

The need to raise or suspend the debt limit is just one of the budget issues facing Congress. Lawmakers must also approve a budget by December 3, when the current stopgap funding measures run out. Failure to do that would trigger a government shutdown.

And Democrats are aiming to approve a $1.75 trillion measure to expand the social safety net and deal with climate change threats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she hopes the House can pass this measure, which Republicans oppose, this week. It must also pass the Senate.

Source: Voice of America