Okanagan residents brace for the worst flooding in centuries
KELOWNA — Facing a flood unlike anything in the Okanagan for centuries, residents of Ellison Lake made a last-ditch effort Thursday to save their beachfront homes.
The lake — also known as Duck Lake — is six kilometres north of Kelowna International Airport and is a popular spot for water-skiing, according to residents of Turtle Lodges Resort, which sits at its north end.
Thursday afternoon, a handful of them remained, sandbagging their homes, the homes of their neighbours, and campers in an RV park, fearing the devastation to come.
Earlier in the day, Adrian Nieoczym, information officer with the Regional District of the Central Okanagan, had warned the region could be a facing a “one-in-200year flooding event.”
A severe thunderstorm was expected to bring 25 millimetres of rain by Friday morning while snow melt prompted by warm weather was expected to worsen conditions, he said.
Cam Manning, who has lived on shore of Ellison Lake for 23 years, pulled out a tape measure and stuck it into the murky brown water covering what used to be a beach to demonstrate how high the water had risen: 1.4 metres, about half a metre higher than he’d ever seen it.
Manning, a realtor who specializes in waterfront properties, said lakefront homes worth $300,000 and $600,000 face ruin.
“Everything’s waterfront now,” he said with a sad chuckle. “If we get any more or the wind gets up and this gets breached, then we’re going to be in some serious trouble.”
Manning said more than 20 truckloads of sand had been dropped off at the resort and neighbours were working around the clock to fill burlap bags.
The resort’s waste-management plant had been purged and many basements had been pumped clear but Manning worried about the extensive cleanup ahead.
“I’m hoping and praying it just sprinkles and showers,” he said.
Manning said the community had come together to prepare for the worst, particularly a man named Nick Garding, who Postmedia found pumping water out of the street near the resort’s RV park.
Garding, who works for the District of Lake Country’s facility maintenance department, said he and other helpers had done as much sandbagging as possible and cleared the way for people to move their trailers to higher ground.
They’d all been closely monitoring local news and updates from the Kelowna Emergency Operations Centre. Mountain run-off due to the warm weather was “kind of the big scare,” he said.
Of the 100 dwellings on the resort, about half were at risk of flooding and most residents had already left, Garding said. His wife and eightyear-old daughter had already fled for Kelowna.
Wednesday, he rented a moving truck to clear most of the valuables from his home but also learned that his insurance wouldn’t cover flooding damage, he said.
“The water’s lapping at my front deck and in my crawl space,” he said. “If get some wave action or it breaches over those sandbags, I’m toast.”
Just down Highway 97, Troy Harsch, a hardware store employee, was busy helping neighbours with sandbags near a flooded stretch of Commonwealth Road.
Harsch said his own home wasn’t yet at risk of flooding. But he and other volunteers — including two young men from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — still went out into the pouring rain to fill and load sandbags into a steady stream of panicked neighbours’ pickup trucks.
“I don’t know who they are, man. I just know that they need help,” Harsch said.
Harsch said he’d heard from other neighbours that were worried about insurance. Some were struggling to find hotel rooms as they prepared to evacuate.
“I’m thinking we’ll just, I don’t know, hope for the best,” he said.
Wednesday evening, Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran posted a message to his Facebook page warning residents that in the coming days they would see water from the city’s creeks and lakes “reach levels we’ve never seen before.”
Basran said city staff were working to support vital infrastructure and help residents in any way possible. He urged those living near water and low-lying areas to prepare for the worst.
“I know we got a bit of a taste of it last weekend and, by all accounts, we’ll see flooding to that level and possibly even beyond, so what I’d also like to ask of residents is that we look after one another,” Basran said.