B.C. swim meet forced to relocate 100 km away after vandals damage community's aquatic centre

Fernie, B.C., swimming coach Angie Abdou says her heart was in pieces when she looked at the shattered glass in the swimming pool of the city's aquatic centre on Saturday.

The Fernie-based Elk Valley Dolphins Swim Club, where Abdou is the associate coach, was about to stage a swim meet with more than 400 participants.

"It was such a punch in the gut," Abdou told Chis Walker, the host of CBC's Daybreak South. "My eyes were so full of tears. I couldn't even look at the kids — I [didn't] want them to see how upset I was because we had to keep them happy. 

"It was just horrible."

The Fernie Aquatic Centre was broken into through the facility's roof sometime between late Friday night and early Saturday morning, scattering shards of glass across the pool deck and into the main pool, the city said in a statement.

The city says the break-in caused extensive damage to the centre, forcing a five- to seven-day closure. In a news release, the RCMP put the estimated cost of repairs at $30,000.

"Staff have spent the morning boarding windows, assessing damage, cleaning glass off the pool deck, along with the draining and refilling process," the city said in a Facebook post.

Cranbrook steps up

Abdou says she was dismayed at the city's decision to close the pool but grateful that Aysha Haines, who was managing the meet, insisted on making it happen and asked the City of Cranbrook to help.

"How are we going to call the Cranbrook pool and say, 'Cancel all your programming for the weekend and hire twice as many guards, and we're putting on a meet right now?'

"But she's very tenacious and she's a problem solver. She just got on the job, and with so much co-operation, by one o'clock, we had the pool set up in Cranbrook for a meet, and we were jumping in for warm-ups," she said.

With the assistance of Cranbrook, the swim event was moved to its aquatic centre and the hundreds of participants and spectators from across the Kootenays, Alberta and Montana were able to stage the competition on Saturday and Sunday. 

With the exception of 60 swimmers from Calgary, Abdou says all the swimmers and their families and friends were able to make the 100 kilometre trip.

"It was unbelievable," she said. "The parents were really happy, and the kids were having fun."

Recurring vandalism at Fernie's aquatic centre 

The city says it's not the first act of vandalism at the aquatic centre. In October 2019, there were two separate occasions where vandals broke the centre's windows with rocks. Before that, vandals set a fire near the facility's lobby doors and caused damage to the building's exterior.

Brett Logan, the city's director of parks, facilities and recreation, says they are considering installing security cameras outside the aquatic centre to minimize the vandalism.

"The amount of incidents we are seeing is concerning, and the significant damage is impacting our programming and costing taxpayers money," he said in a statement.

The RCMP says it is investigating the recent vandalism and asks anyone who has any information about the incident to call the Elk Valley RCMP's Fernie detachment at 250-423-4404.