“It’s difficult to assess the damage of any specific asset, but having said that, we know without access to places like the Okanagan or points in between, that’s really hurt a lot of tourism businesses,” he said.
Both hotels and ski hills saw immediate cancellations following the storms, he said.
The floods compounded losses to the industry caused by wildfires this summer and the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BC Parks said several parks in the Fraser Valley were damaged in the storms, including Cultus Lake, Sasquatch and Golden Ears provincial parks.
Video shared online shows huge concrete blocks strewn at an entrance to the historic Othello Tunnels in Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park, as well as wood debris and washed-out trails.
Canadian Pacific Railway built the tunnels through a granite canyon as part of a railway linking the Kootenays with the coast in the early 1900s. The tracks are long gone and it has become a popular hiking destination with…