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Photo by Maggie Wong / PNG

Doug Smith, Vancouver’s acting director of sustainability, said a sea gate at the narrowest point of False Creek could form part of a larger effort to prevent the estimated billions of dollars of damage that a future flood could cause. In a recent interview, Smith painted the sort of scenario the city is preparing for — one brought on by a high tide, surging water and a projected increase in sea level.

“We would envision most of the False Creek Flats — like all the way up to Clark Street — flooded. We would see Granville Island underwater. You would see the Olympic Village and multiple other areas around the False Creek area with a couple of feet of water,” Smith said.

“That’s the bad news. The good news is that we’ve got lots of time. We’re looking at 2050 before we start really worrying about False Creek, and so over the next couple of years we can really start stretching our imaginations trying to figure out what we could do and how it would look.”

So far, staff have identified four other options for False Creek. They include moving everyone out of the flood plain and demolishing the buildings, doing nothing, or raising the False Creek seawall by two-and-a-half metres to turn it into a dike. But Smith said such a dike would need to be about eight kilometres long, would block views of the water and would sever people’s connection with the waterfront.

Elsewhere in the city, dikes or metal barriers make more sense, he said. One such area is along Waterfront Road downtown, an area that has key infrastructure including railway tracks, SkyTrain lines and the SeaBus terminal. Another is Jericho Beach Park, where staff now combat storm surges with sandbags.