Cache Creek residents who have already weathered one round of devastating flooding in recent days watched the Bonaparte River as it surged high and fast on its course through the village on Wednesday afternoon.
Evacuation orders have been issued for more than 100 homes located on the banks of the river as it rose past historic record high water levels on Tuesday. About 300 residents were told to leave the village and make their way to Kamloops.
Karla Hein, who has lived in Cache Creek for 12 years, said many of the residents evacuated are seniors — some of whom have pets.
“They’ve been uprooted,” Hein said.
“It's a scary situation. The river still can come up higher, as everyone knows. We’re going to be hitting those high numbers. There’s still snow up there and everything’s melting.”
Hein said Cache Creek has “endured a lot” through recent wildfires, floods and the pandemic.
“We still stand here with our heads up, trying to make it every day and be proud of where we live and unite together,” she said.
“We're just hoping everybody else can understand and maybe come out and help where they can or support. Smile at our seniors that are in Kamloops. They're going to need all the support that they can when they're there.”
Peter White said he was planning to head to Kamloops as his property was under an evacuation order, but as of Wednesday afternoon, “the water is a long ways away.”
“A lot of my neighbours, they don’t figure it's going to get up to where they live at,” White said, adding another property, located closer to the water, might be at risk.
“This place got flooded up before, and they do have water there now — but not a bunch. But if [the river] goes up they'll have water there, no doubt about it.”
Wendy Coomber, information officer with the Cache Creek emergency operations centre, said Wednesday the BC River Forecast Centre had advised officials the Bonaparte had levelled off, but with high temperatures in the forecast and some snowpack remaining, the village was remaining cautious.
“Looking at the the stream flow figures, it seems to be correct. But typically the river does its thing in the wee hours late at night and first thing in the morning. So we'll wait and see what happens,” she said.
Coomber said the river is causing some erosion, and it will be difficult to tell just how much damage has happened near its banks until the water level decreases.
In regards to last week’s flooding, Coomber said crews are still evaluating “considerable” damage which happened when Cache Creek, swollen with snow melt, surged past its banks.
She said firefighters were in the process of digging out mud from the fire hall which flooded last week, and the village is working on a way to get debris out of other impacted places.
“We will be putting a call out for volunteers, because a lot of the people who are affected by mud and debris are out on evacuation right now so you can't go close to their residences,” she said.
Cache Creek Mayor John Ranta said the village is expecting 34 C temperatures by the weekend, and he expects more water to come down the Bonaparte River.
Ranta said as far as the creek is concerned, more water came down last week “than we’ve ever seen before, in the last 50 years for sure," but levels have since receded.
He said it will likely take months to restore the community to how it was before the flooding.
Hein said the town needs help from other levels of government.
“We want the help. We need the help to make this last, we’re a main hub,” she said.
Hein said it’s been difficult to watch the devastation happen to the community. She said many residents haven’t been able to work due to the flooding, and some businesses have been ruined.
“We're really trying to come together as a community and just help where we can," she said.
"We want to make sure people survive this and this town keeps going.”
