Okanagan Falls neighbours come together to hold off flood waters
Thousands ordered to evacuate homes in British Columbia’s southern interior
As murky flood water lapped against the ankles of their gumboots outside their new home Thursday, Elsa Edwards and Chris Roger vowed to throw a block party for their neighbours when their ordeal was over.
Nearby Shuttleworth Creek had breached the day before, sending water, sludge and debris cascading across a hayfield, through a vineyard and down a narrow alleyway between Maple and Brockie streets.
Edwards and Roger’s property, at Brockie and 14th Avenue, was among 54 near the creek which received evacuation orders Thursday morning due to what the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen called “immediate danger to life safety due to flooding” in a news release.
The weary husband and wife said they bought the house a month ago.
“Welcome to the neighbourhood,” Roger said with a grin.
Edwards said she hadn’t slept for 36 hours after helping neighbours battle the breach.
But luckily for the couple and their three children, they hadn’t yet moved their belongings into their new place. Aside from a little water in the garage, it has stayed dry. They have their new neighbours to thank for that, they said.
“This is the most incredible community I have ever met,” Edwards said. “There isn’t a soul on this street that wasn’t involved. We didn’t know anybody and we’ve met all of our neighbours for a three-block radius now because everybody’s been here.”
“We’re going to have a big barbecue,” Roger added.
Lynne Donesley, who has lived in Okanagan Falls since 1973, said a property she owns was among those ordered to evacuate Thursday. She lives in a condo nearby but returned to the neighbourhood where she sat on a flatbed truck piled with sandbags, “supervising” her son and grandson as they helped their neighbours.
“The blacktop is all gone and the porch came off,” she said. “It flooded here before but not like this. There were very few houses in here.”
Corey Kaden, also an Okanagan Falls resident of 45 years, was in Penticton picking up sandbags when he got a call from his wife telling him they had to evacuate their home near Brockie Place and 14th Avenue.
“There’s a lot of new people in OK Falls now and the whole community came together last night,” he said. “It was just awesome.”
Kaden said he lost count of how many trailers and trucks brought sandbags Wednesday night.
“This is definitely going to be in the range of a one-in-200-year flood,’’ said Frances Maika, spokeswoman for the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary. “And it could be worse than that.”
Nearly 2,700 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes in British Columbia’s southern Interior as officials warn of flooding due to extremely heavy snowpacks, sudden downpours and unseasonably warm temperatures.
Chris Marsh, emergency operations centre director and program manager for the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary, said there has been “significant flooding” in the eastern area of the region.
“Over the last 24 to 36 hours we’ve experienced significant rainfall, up to 50 millimetres in some spots and in some of the drainages in this area, and that’s caused the rivers to rise significantly over the past 24 hours,” Marsh said Thursday.
Evacuation orders were issued Thursday for the about 1,500 properties covering a large area along the Granby, Kettle and West Kettle rivers, as well as in the Carmi region, 80 kilometres southeast of Kelowna.
Marsh said there have been washouts on smaller streams and tributaries in the region as well, isolating residents on some properties.
“If you are thinking you’re safe because you haven’t flooded before, but you are seeing the water come up, please make sure you’re safe and that you make the decision timely enough to evacuate yourself if you need to.”