'How can we go on?' B.C. couple loses home and entire RV park to flooding
Thousands in B.C. remain under evacuation orders as warming temperatures combine with rain and melting snow
Monica and Brian Thate spent months prepping their Grand Forks, B.C., home and RV park for the forecasted spring flooding — but they still lost everything.
"I haven't been able to even look at the park. It's been devastating. And so I just feel very weak," Monica Thate told As It Happens host Carol Off while fighting back sobs.
"It's just really tough. It's hard to imagine how we can overcome this, how we're going to get through."
Thousands of British Columbians remain under evacuation orders as warming temperatures combine with rain and melting snow to create historic flood conditions across wide areas of the province.
- Follow CBC B.C. for the latest on the historic flooding
- 'We just didn't have a hope': B.C. flood victims struggle
The Grand Forks couple had read months ago that a massive snow melt was expected to bring flooding to their area along the Kettle River.
They brought in 150 truckloads of soil and fill to raise the park up, and built a permanent berm along the riverbank to protect the elderly residents of the park's four occupied mobile homes.
They also put out sandbags and bought extra pumps, which Brian manned himself.
Nevertheless, at about 2:30 a.m. on Thursday, Brian got up to check the pumps and saw that the river had spilled its banks and sent water gushing up into the RV park that's been in his family for 21 years.
"I had no time to think because I had to go out to get people out of the mobile home park at our place," Brian said.
He had spent the previous three nights getting out of bed every two hours to check on the pumps, he said, and was "operating on pure adrenaline at that point."
Once he got everyone out of bed and to higher ground, he realized their own home adjacent to the park was also flooding.
"That's when the tears came. Because, you know, it's not just the work of trying to protect the house, but the years of hard work and effort that we all put into building our home — and here it's gone in a few hours," he said.
"It just really leaves us with a big hole in our hearts."
Water in Grand Forks was at least a metre deep in some downtown streets Thursday night, shutting down Highway 3 through town to low clearance vehicles.
More than 2,700 people are affected by evacuation orders in B.C., and yet more flooding is expected next week.
The Thates, meanwhile, are worried about their neighbours as well the future of their business.
"We're hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole now, so how can we go on?" Monica said. "We will go on, but we just don't know how we will go on."
Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from CBC News. Interview with Brian and Monica Thate produced by Imogen Birchard.