Hundreds still displaced by November floods in Merritt, B.C., recovery slowed by cold weather

Many still displaced after November floods Hundreds of people remain out of their homes in Merritt following November's devastating floods.

They are still out of their homes. Their properties are still deemed unsafe.

This is the reality for about 350 Merritt, B.C., residents who remain scattered around the province, living in hotels and with family, after being forced from their homes during the devastating floods five months ago.

“Its really tough when you have to think about these people and what they have to deal with,” said Greg Solecki who is city’s recovery manager.

“There have been people that have lost their jobs because they’ve been displaced to Kamloops or Abbotsford. They weren’t able to come back and work.”

Recovery efforts have been delayed by a myriad of factors, including weather.

“The freezing of all the river water and ultimately the silt and the mud, really hampered the efforts,” said Solecki, explaining that many people were only able to start cleaning up in March after things started to thaw.

Improved weather conditions have now allowed trained volunteers from organizations like Team Rubicon and Samaritan’s Purse to return to work clearing dirt and debris from inside homes they couldn’t access during the winter.

“There’s a number of properties that aren’t safe for people to live in still,” said Jeff Becker who is the Merritt leader for Team Rubicon, a veteran-led disaster response charity.

“This is a still quite a hazard-rich environment,” he explained, saying mould and asbestos are among the concerns. “Also a lot of slip and trip hazards, varying types of debris from broken glass to concrete that’s standing up inside muck.”

Damage from the floods in Merritt is estimated to be about $70 million.

“We figure about $20 million in damage to homes, another $20 million to schools and about $30 million to infrastructure,” Solecki said. One school has still not reopened.

Meanwhile, he says about 85 per cent of impacted homeowners did not have insurance.

“You could be looking at the outside of a home and not realizing that there’s five feet of river silt and soil in the basement or the inside of the home as been destroyed,” he said.

Eight-thousand tonnes of soil and 400 truckloads of flood debris have been removed from properties so far and there’s more to come.

“We’ve got a deadline to actually get the silt and soils and disaster debris out of homes by the end of the month, by the end of April,” he said, explaining that the funding will be cut off in May.

Meanwhile, Becker said while they are making progress, there is still lots of work to be done.

“We still are encountering homes where there are still unmet needs around removing muck out of basements, flood debris and all that,” said Becker.

In one home they were just cleaning, he said they “actually had to dig access to the basement before we could get in and start to assist with removing the flood affected debris.”

Team Rubicon is also helping homeowners try and recover valuables and have them properly cleaned if they are salvageable.

Solecki said one of the big problems Merritt is trying to resolve is a lack of temporary housing.

“Some businesses have shut down because they can’t have employees here because there’s no accommodation. Some people can’t repair their homes because there’s no accommodation,” he said.