DAMAGE BECOMING CLEAR IN HISTORIC N.B. FLOOD
For 48 years, Jerry McFarland’s rustic cottage on New Brunswick’s Grand Lake was a cherished refuge for family and friends, where precious summertime memories were carefully recorded in well-worn journals.
Today, McFarland’s cottage is in ruins, shoved off its foundation and torn apart on the weekend by rising floodwaters.
“It was a million-dollar property, to me,’’ the 84-year-old Fredericton resident said Monday. “It’s just a pile of rubbish there now ... with the thrashing of the water.’’
With the flooding in central New Brunswick finally stabilizing after reaching record levels on the weekend, the extent of damage caused in areas cut off by rising water is starting to become clear. McFarland’s cottage was one of many on Grand Lake that were swept away on Saturday as powerful winds pushed the big lake to places it had never reached before.
“On Saturday the wind was wild,’’ he said. “It was really the wind that blew the waves ... It was the wind that really knocked down the cottages.’’
Pictures posted on social media show cottages, trailers and other recreational gear floating away.
McFarland, a retired school district supervisor with four grown children, said his cottage had survived previous floods that reached historic levels in 1973 and 2008. And it was in 2008 that he raised the onestorey building by 18 inches, using concrete blocks.
“I was sure that I would never get flooded,’’ said McFarland. “But nothing like this has been recorded before in our history.’’
Localized flooding is practically an annual event in this part of central New Brunswick. In late April and early May, heavy rains combine with the melting snow pack in northern New Brunswick to engorge the mighty Saint John River and its tributaries, which comprise a vast basin along the west side of the province.
Grand Lake, a 45-minute drive east of Fredericton, is the province’s largest lake at 20 kilometres long and five kilometres wide. It drains through the Jemseg River into the Saint John River east of Gagetown.
McFarland said he and his family will miss the cottage, but he’s thankful no one was hurt.
Rebuilding is not an option, given the expense, he said. However, McFarland has his eye on a used motorhome that he might park on his lakeside property.
To be sure, the loss of the cottage journals will be keenly felt by his entire family, he said.
“Those are the memories we had from every day, and those are gone,’’ he said, noting that his late father wrote the first entry in 1970. “It’s an emotional thing as well as a tactile thing ... I hope that they might possibly be around, but I doubt it.’’
McFarland said the cottage was insured, though he’s sure the policy doesn’t offer coverage for flooding.