Many residents still digging out from flood in B.C. community
Decimated Princeton still remains on an evacuation alert
PRINCETON, B.C. Mario Loutef had little sleep over the four days leading up to Saturday, when he piled his ruined belongings in the street outside his home in Princeton, B.C.
A vast swath of the downtown in the community two hours south of Kamloops was decimated when the Tulameen River overflowed its banks, flooding homes and forcing people to evacuate.
The community still remains on an evacuation alert, but for many, like Loutef, the damage couldn’t get any worse.
“It turned the corner and then it was like a tsunami because it filled up the little streets on the way here. But once those were taken care of that’s when the water took care of my space and everybody else on the road,” he told The Canadian Press.
A thick coat of black mud has covered everything on the first floor of the home. Loutef has been working around the clock since he was allowed access. Boards have been ripped off walls, a dirty line about two metres up on the wall shows how high the water rose.
“I lost everything. We lost everything, the wife and I. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where it’s going to end,” said Loutef, who has lived in the home for the past four years. “I’m trying to save my tools, which is my bread and butter, because if I don’t have that I can’t make the revenue. I’m pretty much in the slop ... pun intended.”
Streets in the area are closed to traffic. Suction trucks are trying to remove standing water from some basements. The streets and sidewalks are covered in mud.
“It’s like a one-man battle,” said Loutef.
Second storm warning
B.C. residents are being told to brace for more rain as an atmospheric river moves south, bringing more precipitation to areas already hit hard by flooding and mudslides.
Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for the province’s North Coast, warning of potential flooding and landslides due to heavy rains. The region is being hit by a system expected to bring 100 to 150 millimetres of rain to the Prince Rupert area and 30 to 60 mm to Haida Gwaii by Monday.
The storm is then expected to head south towards parts of the province, such as Abbotsford, that are still grappling with washed-out roads. Mounties announced on Saturday that the bodies of three men had been recovered near Highway 99, bringing the death toll from the flooding to four.