The sound of bombs filled the neighborhood around Kelowna’s Radant Road on Wednesday morning following Tuesday’s heavy flooding along Mission Creek.
Heavy rains in the city on Monday night and early Tuesday morning caused the creek to rise quickly and the water broke the banks near Lakeshore Road. The basements of some homes were flooded as groundwater levels rose in the area.
“Yesterday we were not prepared for the amount of rain that hit us, so we were surprised. She climbed almost two feet during the night, we’ve never seen her before, “said Lois Edwards, a resident of nearby Bluebird Road. She was awakened at 5 a.m. Tuesday by her neighbor, who had first noticed time of the flood.
“I had never seen it go up so high in previous years because previous years have packed us up and the neighbors upstream have made us sandbags.”
Dave Campbell of the River Forecast Center in BC says the amount of rain that fell during the night also surprised them.
“I think there were some of the challenges, related to the amount of rain we saw, very localized rain,” Campbell said.
“I think its expectation was around 20 to 40 mm of rain in the region and it ended up reaching, I think, more than 60 mm at the head, so this provoked a response a little more than had been planned “.
Edwards’ basement was flooded Tuesday and his backyard was under water. But the yard was cleared Wednesday and she was pumping out the basement.
“It’s gone down a lot, and now with the sandbag it doesn’t go through here, so we took it out … yesterday at noon we were under control,” he said.
But while his home has a workshop in the basement, he said some of his neighbors have living areas in their basements flooded.
And a Radant Road person who spoke to Castanet said they can’t get flood insurance for homes in the area, which causes residents to pay the damage bill.
Mission Creek has fallen significantly since Tuesday, and while more rain is forecast, Campbell says there is no immediate risk of additional flooding.
“It’s not the same blow as this last system that arrived earlier in the week,” he said. “So the immediate concerns are less on things like Mission Creek. There’s more potential rain, but there’s nothing in terms of organized rain.”
The River Forecast Center’s high-flow warning for Okanagan was lowered on Wednesday.
Although the risk of flooding has dropped, the state of emergency in the city of Kelowna remains in place.
Photo: River forecast center