Okanagan residents wait — and prepare — for lake to rise
'Beautiful place to be, if you didn't know a disaster was happening,' says resident Craig Hunter
Residents in the small, waterfront community of Twin Lakes near Penticton, B.C. are doing all they can to protect their homes as emergency officials predict significant flooding for the area.
"It's a great day, beautiful place to be if you didn't know a disaster was happening," said resident Craig Hunter.
Hunter has spent the last five weeks building a wall of sandbags to protect the place he's called home for 30 years, but his barrier, about one-and-a-half metres high, may not be enough.
Predictions are that the water levels in Lower Nipit Lake could rise another two metres
It's currently rising by 15 centimetres per day. —
Late Thursday afternoon, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen issued an evacuation alert for 64 properties, meaning residents need to be prepared to leave on a moment's notice.
'Significantly worse'
The area experienced significant flooding last year, and officials say this year it's expected to be "significantly worse."
The higher-than-normal snowpack will continue to melt as warmer temperatures hit next week, causing lake levels to rise quickly.
Emergency officials spent the day dropping off truckloads of sandbags, and crews surveyed the area to see how they can best hold the water back.
Twin Lakes are kettle lakes, which means there is no natural outflow like there are for creeks or rivers.
Last year, officials were able to pump the water out to Park Rille Creek. However, that's not an option this year because the creek is already flooding and has washed out the two-lane Sportmens Bowl Road.
"Knowing it's coming and knowing there isn't much you can do about it, and knowing that there isn't much that emergency services can do about it because everybody is flooding, it's a challenge to come to terms with it," said Hunter.
"And the emotional side is, holy crap man, what are we going to do?"
On the other side of the lake, the Brown family was busy Friday building a wall of sandbags to keep water from ruining their pump house.
"If the water comes up another foot, we'll have to shut this off, which means we won't have any water," said Alex Brown.
