A Fraser Valley woman is out an estimated $50,000 after a flood washed away her driveway, drenched her basement and destroyed her shed earlier this week.
Carol Dolen said her Lake Errock home sits at the lowest dip of Bayview Road, but some culverts had not been cleared after days of heavy rainfall. With the ditches empty on Sunday morning, water spilled over the roadway and washed away a portion of the street, in addition to sending a “river running right through” her yard.
“I was in shock. I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do next, it was awful,” the grandmother told Global News.
She had awoken that morning to a phone call from her neighbour informing her of “some big problems” outside her door, she added.
About 20 neighbours stepped in right away to help divert the water with rakes and shovels, as well as clean items out of Dolen’s flooded basement.
Lainie Sherry, who lives next door, said she hasn’t observed any road maintenance since she moved in last August.
“I haven’t seen any kind of ditch maintenance whatsoever,” she told Global News. “People call all he time. It’s so bad that during the summertime, we have a ditch cleanup neighbourhood-wise.
“If we’re taking that upon ourselves, I don’t know why the people that we’re paying for in our property taxes aren’t also doing their job and taking responsibility for their bit.”
While there are privately-maintained culverts on Bayview Road, Dolen insists the publicly-maintained ones caused Sunday’s disaster.
The Ministry of Transportation is responsible for those public culverts, but in a Tuesday statement, claimed it was a “private residential driveway culvert” that failed to handle the runoff.
“Ministry staff and its maintenance contractor were able to redirect the water from the private culvert into the roadside ditch, but not before damage had occurred,” reads the statement.
“The ministry’s maintenance contractor performs annual assessments of ditches, culverts and catch basins — but only provincial infrastructure.”
The ministry suggested it’s possible a private driveway culvert in this instance may be undersized, and said staff would investigate further to understand how that could impact the larger draining system.
Meanwhile, Dolen is calling on the B.C. government to pay for the damage caused. Her $50,000 estimate doesn’t include the cost of lost belongings, including antiques stored in her shed.
“Be responsible,” she urged. “If you’ve taken on a job, be responsible.”
She has upgraded her own culverts so that water goes down into the creek, she added.
While she has home insurance, Dolen said damage from overland water or soil movement is no longer covered by it.