Terry Wells said he took this photo of a mudslide at Tinhorn Creek at 3:50 p.m. on May 28, 1983. A “massive mud ball” came down the creek about 20 minutes earlier, he said. Photo submitted - Click on picture for larger image
OSOYOOS TIMES-June 30, 2010
By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times
When Terry Wells of Osoyoos drove through the scene of devastation around Road 16 south of Oliver after Hwy. 97 reopened following the June 13 mudslide, he couldn’t help but think of a similar slide he witnessed at Tinhorn Creek 27 years ago.
It was May 28, 1983, when a mudslide tore down the creek next to a vineyard Wells used to own at the site where the Tinhorn Creek Winery now stands off of Road 7.
He said the weather that spring was very similar to this year, with heavy rains saturating the hills on the western slope of the valley.
At about 3:30 p.m. that day, Wells said, a great torrent of water came down the steep and narrow creek carrying debris, logs and mud with it.
At first, Wells, who is the brother of Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells, said he could see trees toppling further up the canyon and he thought someone was logging.
There was a “noise like a locomotive,” he said, adding that soon he could see a “40-foot-high mud ball with trees sticking out” coming down the creek.
Wells phoned his neighbours to warn them and called 911.
After the mud went by, he said there was about nine metres of water pooled where the winery is now located.
Wells said there was minimal damage to his property, thanks in part to the logs washing down the hill in the slide becoming caught in the trees and preventing the mud and debris from wiping out surrounding properties.
A water line was damaged on his property and repairs cost him roughly $1,000, he said.
But the slide did fill an irrigation ditch at the bottom of the hill with mud and debris.
The flow shot southwards when it hit the ditch and ended up crossing Hwy. 97 at Road 8.
It damaged the ditch and carried mud into an orchard located below the irrigation canal, Wells said.
A week passed before the ditch was cleaned out, he added.
The B.C. Environment Ministry came to the scene immediately afterwards, Wells said, and put up a berm to protect properties around the creek as large volumes of water continued to come down the creek for weeks afterward.
According to an Osoyoos Times article published on June 2, 1983, the slide knocked out water service for several irrigation and domestic systems in the area and was caused when the creek broke through an earthen dam.
The cleanup was expected to cost $40,000.
Such mudslides are a fact of life when people build or farm on an alluvial fan, said Wells, who sold the property in 1993.
Anyone who witnesses such a force of nature “experiences a frightening sight,” he said.
To this day Wells is still “awestruck” of the power of the water and mud that roared down the creek near his property all those years ago.
“Nothing stands in its way.”
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