SALISBURY, N.B. – Salisbury residents who were stranded by flood waters Monday say the village isn’t doing enough to keep them safe.
The only road leading into the largest subdivision in the village, Hillside subdivision, was under several feet of water yesterday after the region received some harsh weather.
READ MORE: Washouts, damage reported throughout N.B. after 160 millimetres of rainfall
Carrie and Jason Wilson run a special care home in the community, and fear someone is going to get hurt because of the unreliable road.
“I happens every time there is significant rainfall and when there is snow and it melts. It is happening more and more frequently,” Carrie said.
Just yesterday, Jason was cut off from getting a resident back to the special care home.
“I was actually stuck on the other side with a resident that required oxygen and we could not get back to her oxygen machine,” he said.
He says someone with a truck managed to get oxygen to the resident until they could safely pass more than four hours later.
“Every time that it floods we are on high alert because we know that something could happen in a matter of minutes and we need prompt medical attention,” said Carrie.
Culvert posing a problem
Salisbury Mayor, Terry Keating, says the village has completed a study outlining what it would take to solve the 20-year-old problem.
He says the CN culvert next to the road is too small to accommodate the water flow, and that they’ve made repeated requests to CN to have the culvert replaced.
“We are not getting very good cooperation from CN,” he said.
Keating says now it’s up to the village to come up with $900,000 dollars to raise the road, money he says they just don’t have.
“We are trying to reach the provincial and federal governments to see if we can go one third, one third, one third.”
But last year they missed the deadline to apply for that grant money, meaning they now can’t reapply for grant funding until June 2017.
READ MORE: Heavy rain causes localized flooding, power outages in southern, central New Brunswick
Building a second access road, he says, is not an option because it would be even more expensive. So, until they can somehow come up with money to raise the road, emergency vehicles will be placed here when it floods to help residents cross in event of an emergency.
The Wilsons say that solution isn’t good enough.
“We have five people confined to wheelchairs here.” says Jason
“It is a huge safety concern and minutes matter. It could be a matter of life and death.” says Carrie.
Comments