Shoppers unload on statt - a. ——_ = ae = - =| = | el = Customer at Superstore digging for the last rolls of toilet paper amidst a wall of empty product. Ashi £y BURGOYNE PHOTO sa Floods have caused grocery shortages and restrictions on vehicle fuel By ASHLEY BURGOYNE hort supplies have led to short tempers, according to essential store workers in Vancouver. Floods across the Lower Main- land have caused grocery supply shortages and restrictions on vehi- cle fuel. Grocery stores in Vancou- ver have been having trouble keeping their shelves fully stocked, leading to angry, abusive customers sometimes taking out their frustra- tions on staff. Superstore employee Rabia Klair works at the Southeast Marine Drive and Prince Edward Street store, packing online orders. Klair said customers are coming every day and wondering why shelves are empty, then asking when shelves will be stocked. “Customers are very grumpy,” she said. Klair said when items aren’t available, she has to order more. Parul Sharma, an employee at a Chevron station on Main Street and East 41% Avenue, said customers are not happy about the provincial restriction that limits fuel for non- essential vehicles to 30 litres per trip to gas station. The restriction is to ensure vehicles that deliver essential goods and services can get fuel. “Some people will just come in and then just yell at us,” she said. Before fuel restrictions were put in place, customers were buying large amounts of fuel. “Everyone was like buying like two hundred, three hundred dollars [of] gas,” Sharma said. “But they need to make sure, you know, the person behind them as well is getting something so this should be more considerate about others.” Sharma said people need to understand resources won’t run out. Sahib Kohli, who works at family-owned grocery store Day To Day Express Grocery & Produce on Fraser Street and East 46th Avenue, said the floods have affected their supply of milk and rice. “There was some days last week people were panicking,” Kohli said. “They were just picking up milk from all over the places.” He said he’d heard of shortages at Superstore, Costco and private grocery stores. Kohli said these larger stores receive supplies first, before smaller stores, and they are doing their best to keep products stocked. “You never know things might get better and things might get worse, depends on situation but you want to get ready for everything [that] comes,” he said. More heavy rainfall is predicted to make its way through coastal and southern B.C. through today and Wednesday. This would be the third atmospheric river to hit B.C. this month. Rebecca Pow, a Langara nursing student, said she’s not worried about the shortages and didn’t notice her local North Vancouver grocery store running low on products. She said her mother works at a smaller grocery store and says the supplies are coming in from other places such as Washington state. Pow said there is no need to panic because of these alternative routes. “We will run out of stuff, but we can just get it from other places,” she said. She said the people panic buying need to be aware of those who can’t afford to stock up early, and that panic buying is counterproductive. Sharma said the gas station she works at ran out of fuel only once, and more fuel was delivered less than a day and a half later. “Everything is pretty OK now because we're getting fuel deliver- ies, so for now I think everything is kind of back to normal,” she said. Sciencenews B.C. fa Farmers forced to adapt due to climate change = By LESIA POGORELO or two weeks now, the rain B= fallen steadily and relent- lessly on Diljit Kaler’s farm in Abbotsford. It’s damaged his roof and killed his blueberries. And there’s still more rain to come. “We have to change [the roof] next week,” he said. “The plants rms face uncertain future will die here.” For Kaler, the owner of B & K Farms at 34965 Anderson Road in Abbotsford, the real damage will come next year when he can’t sell his products. “The fruit is all under water,” he said Monday. There’s no respite in sight. A prolonged period of heavy rain today is expected to continue through Wednesday. Unprece- dented flooding has left farms like Kaler’s underwater, and volunteers and crews have been working to set up sandbags to hold back Sumas River floodwaters in a desperate bid to reduce more damage. Melanie Kuxdorf, the communi- cations and marketing manager at UBC Farms, said farmers in their network are telling similar stories with no one knowing exactly what the future will hold for the agricul- ture industry. “Tt's not even the Fraser, it's another river that's affecting it.” — ANDREW EGAN, LANGARA ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES COORDINATOR According to Langara’s envi- ronmental studies coordinator, Andrew Egan, most of the Fraser Valley is built on a floodplain. Over the last 10,000 years, the river has continuously flooded the surrounding area and while it doesn't flood every year, Egan said it’s happening more frequently. “That builds up layers of sedi- ment, and then your plants grow on top of it,” Egan said. “We have stopped the river from flooding, by building dikes. And then in the soils we add fertilizer. We add more soil to it. Slowly over time, we affect the soil.” Egan said there have been regu- lar floods over the years, including one in the 1940s and another in the 1990s, but the current flooding in Abbotsford is “epic.” “Tt’s not even the Fraser, it’s another river that’s affecting it,” Egan said. “But this is what happens when you build infrastructure that doesn’t have the capacity to hold back these large-scale storms.” Egan said what’s happening is clearly the result of climate change. At UBC Farms, which helps train new farmers, Kuxdorf, the communications and market- ing manager, said the agriculture industry has to change. “Climate change is already having a huge impact on agricul- ture, and it will continue to have an impact on everything from surviv- ing heat waves to floods, but then also the changes with biodiversity,” she said. The Voice is pub- lished by Langara College’s joumalism government and administration. We welcome letters to department. Editorial the editor. 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