'I'm going to die': B.C. man recounts terror of being caught in flood

Jordan Jongema's rescue from his parent's home during the worst of the rising flood waters in Yarrow, B.C., Tuesday night took a number of harrowing twists.

But none were more surreal than the moment, at 3:30 in the morning, when a rescue boat chugged up to his second storey childhood bedroom where he had hunkered down with his Bernese puppy Bowser, fearing the worst.

"I heard a little motor about 500 metres away, and I ... flashed my flashlight. And sure enough, it was the Coquitlam Fire Department. They see me and said, 'hey, we'll be there.' And sure enough, they float right up," he said.

"Never thought I would see a boat float by my bedroom window."

Jongema, who was house sitting, said he was aware of the flooding in the evening but delayed his departure after reading misinformation about looters on social media. 

By the time he did try to drive out, roads were submerged and impassable. So Jongema returned to his parent's house, called 911 and watched the situation go from bad to worse.

"By 6:30 [p.m.] it was just coming through my house, through the floorboards. The carpet was wet. I could see my footprints as I'm walking in it.

"And of course, my dog is spazzing out and my phone was starting to die ... So I'm running on not only adrenaline ... but [fear] that my phone's going to die without properly understanding that help is going to come my way."

At 12:30 a.m., Jongema decided that moving to the roof gave him the best chance of surviving.

"You hear about the Yarrow pump station failing and the Nooksack River coming over. They're saying that the Fraser River could join into that, and I'm just thinking I am screwed and in serious danger. So I started throwing stuff on the roof ... climbed on the porch and I started setting up beds on there."

However, getting non-swimming Bowser on the roof was a no-go, so Jongema jumped off the roof into the two metre high floodwaters and swam back to his room to be with his puppy.

By then he admits to being close to hypothermic and fully gripped by terror.

"When they told me the pump was going to break I was like 'I'm going to die,'" he said.

"I [saw] guys running down the road ... panicking, screaming and flailing at helicopters that were going by. And I'm like, is this really happening?"

Now safe, dry and warm, Jongema said he's grateful to his rescuers and to those on social media who reached out to help after he posted about his predicament.

"I made one little post because it took about five hours probably for the RCMP to get back to me ... These strangers  ... they were going to send guys on jet skis. They were trying to get fishing boats."

As for his childhood home, the prospects are less rosy.

"I'm just devastated for my parents who have owned that place since '96," he said.

"We were boating away and I looked back to see it 70 per cent full of water and was like, 'what the hell?' That stings. But I'm just glad to be out of there."