Emergency declared
Residents trying to keep rising waters of Okanagan Lake at bay despite power outages, evacuation orders
It’s not the kind of waterfront property Jeannette MacIntosh had in mind when she moved her family into a new home in Trout Creek in December.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the parking lot at Powell Beach directly behind her back yard was underwater, while inside her home there was no electricity and about 15 centimetres of water in the crawl space.
Power was cut Tuesday night to the MacIntosh residence and 13 neighbouring properties on Johnson Street, Dale Avenue, Lighthouse Landing and Wharf Street.
The outage was prompted by rising groundwater that threatened to submerge electrical connections in underground vaults and junction boxes, potentially electrifying the surface water above.
The situation also triggered a declaration of a local state of emergency, but MacIntosh and her family of five intend to stay. “We still feel safe,” she said. She praised staff at the District of Summerland for its handling of the situation, which is a result of Okanagan Lake reaching its highest level in at least 60 years: “It’s unprecedented for them, so they’re doing the best they can.”
MacIntosh has, however, begun to take matters into her own hands by having a generator connected to her sump pump to get it running again, with another power plant on the way to turn on the lights in the rest of the house.
Linda Tynan, the district’s chief administrative officer, said only “a couple” of families affected by the power outage actually left their homes.
The state of emergency, she added, was declared to give the district additional powers required to protect residents and properties.
For example: “If there was imminent danger to public safety, we could require evacuating,” Tynan explained.
As for the troublesome electrical connections, she said she hadn’t yet had a chance to check with staff about why the equipment was allowed to be located in the flood zone.
Virtually every waterfront home in Trout Creek and the Lower Town areas of Summerland are now behind walls of sandbags, and a flood communications centre has opened at Municipal Hall to provide information to affected property owners. The phone number is 250-486-3765.
According to the district, the B.C. government is now predicting Okanagan Lake will peak at 343.21 metres above sea level. As of noon Wednesday, it was hovering at 343.16 — up four centimetres in just 24 hours.
In Penticton, city manager Peter Weeber said waterfront infrastructure, which has been guarded with sandbags and temporary dams, held up well against Tuesday night’s windstorm.
Elsewhere in the region, six homes in Olalla remain under an evacuation order due to the rising level of Keremeos Creek, while 11 other homes nearby are on evacuation alert.
There are also evacuation alerts still in place for 39 properties south of Oliver and nine in Twin Lakes.