N.B. flood cleanup may get military help

Canadian Armed Forces deploying 60 members for damage assessment

New Brunswick residents have begun the long, messy business of cleaning up sodden homes and cottages — including one runaway cottage left bobbing in lake waters after floating seven kilometres away from its perch.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was scheduled to visit Oromocto, N.B., late Friday afternoon with Premier Brian Gallant, according to a press release from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Trudeau and Gallant will visit an “incident command post” and then tour Saint John River communities affected by flooding.

The Canadian Armed Forces said it was deploying 60 members to assist provincial authorities with assessments.

The soldiers are from 4 Engineer Support Regiment based at 5th Canadian Division Support Base Gagetown and RearAdmiral Craig Baines, Commander Joint Task Force Atlantic, said the mission is a “bit more personal for our team.”

“They’re deploying to help their neighbours, and the communities close to where they live. Many of our members have been volunteering in recent days, like many community members have, at night and on the weekends to help their neighbours.”

The federal response comes as flood waters continued their long-awaited retreat, two weeks after they swept through Fredericton and then went on to swamp several communities along the swollen Saint John River.

The expansive cleanup could be most daunting in the Grand Lake area outside Jemseg, where many cottages either collapsed or were relocated by surging waters and potent winds.

Delberta Flood, who lives in the lake’s Youngs Cove, said she was stunned to find a whole building resting just down the shore from her home, which was not affected by the flood.

She was out walking last weekend when she spotted something quite a large distance from her home.

“I got as close as I could and it was a house or a camp — a oneand-a-half storey camp sitting upright, still floating but caught up in a tree,” she said with a chuckle.

The military said that since the flooding began, liaison officers had been monitoring developments with provincial authorities and providing advice on the best support it could provide “if provincial resources and capabilities were exceeded.” The Trans-Canada Highway between Fredericton and Moncton reopened just before noon Friday after being shut for a week, but it is reduced to one lane in each direction in one portion.

“The water is down across the board,” Emergency Measures Organization spokesperson Geoffrey Downey said Friday afternoon. “Fredericton is now for example below flood stage and according to the five-day forecast every community but two should be out of flood stage as well by Wednesday.”

Downey said water levels were still forecast to persist at Jemseg and Sheffield-Lakeville Corner, south of Fredericton.