Cleaning up — ‘lots of people’s landscaping in other people’s yards’

Residents, contractors and maintenance crews were clearing away the mud, gravel and property damage at Sun Rivers today (Thursday).

Dave Shaw was sweeping the debris from his driveway near the top of the subdivision, figuring he got off lightly in the flood that accompanied the downpour.

“It was like a waterfall, everything coming off the mountain,” he said, nodding towards the face of Mount Paul. He was in his back yard when the downpour hit.

“I hear this noise, so I come around the front and it’s like a river (in the roadway).”

He only just returned after an eight-year absence and was living in Calgary last year when the big flood hit, though not in the area most heavily hit.

“I know what water can do,” he said.

Down the hill, just off Sun Rivers Drive, Kim Tamblyn was still traumatized by the flood, having arrived home in the aftermath. Several homes were caught in rivers of debris that swept through yards and over embankments.

“It’s the way the subdivision’s built,” she said, adding that they’ve not had a problem before.

Where the mud and water couldn’t find a course down paved streets, it ran through yards, over embankments and seeped into basements. She was waiting for an insurance adjuster to arrive and trying to reach the subdivision management without success.

“I’m collecting stuff for my mother,” said a neighbouring resident, yarding a wagon wheel from the muck as TV crews arrived. “She’s 94 and this was her pride and joy. The front yard’s blown right out.”

Leslie Brochu, vice president at Sun Rivers Golf Resort Community, said that fortunately there didn’t appear to be serious structural damage to homes. “Lots of people’s landscaping is in other people’s yards,” she said.

Although bark mulch plugged some surface drains, “The overland drainage system worked very well.”

The golf course, however, is taking some down time. The back nine will be open again Friday morning but the front nine will be closed until Sunday. Most of the damage was done to holes one and nine, and the driving range is closed.

There’s no estimate yet of what repairs to the course will cost. “It actually looks worse than it is because it’s so messy.”

In North Kamloops, Katy Grimshaw put out an urgent call for sandbags on the Random Acts of Kamloops Kindness Facebook page and had a timely response. Her house is next to the Salvation Army offices and is vulnerable because of limited drainage, she said.

“Thankfully we’ve been able to get it each time,” she said. “A couple of weeks ago, we were fighting it off for two hours and it was coming in to0 fast to put it out. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.”

At the Wednesday Farmers Market, the rain poured down on shoppers and stalls. One mom with four kids and a baby, was assisted by a store owner, who got the family safely inside than drove her to her van.