Twenty Reservists from across B.C. gathered at CFB Esquimalt’s Urban Search and Rescue complex to become the first military members in BB trained on a simple alternative to sandbagging.

The Tiger Dam flood control system – originally designed in Canada – fights water with water. Each 15-metre Tiger Dam section replaces about 500 sandbags and folds easily into the next one to make a continuous barrier (the province of B.C. bought enough to cover a 26-kilometre stretch). A small team can set-up a barrier in a fraction of the time it takes to make a sandbag wall and best of all, there’s no shoveling.