Culvert clearing causes upstream flooding in Kelowna neighbourhood

It happened so quickly, residents on Kelowna’s Heimlich Road could only watch the flooding unfold in their front yards Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s terrible I mean don’t even know where to start,” said Jeff Meuss, a Heimlich Road resident who told Global News he has attempted to speak with the City about the potential for this event for nearly three years with no success.

Meuss said Rumour Creek was spilling over Spiers Road earlier in the day, prompting the City to send out a vacuum truck to clear the culvert.

Clearing the culvert released a torrent of water under the road into the ditch system on Heimlich Road where residential driveways are built over the waterway that leads to Mission Creek.

Most culverts under the driveways were plugged, leading to flooding on almost all properties on the north side of the street.

“This is totally preventable. One hundred per cent,” Meuss said. “They knew that this little creek this year was having some problems backing up. But they say that it’s the homeowners responsibility. Each individual property, they’re responsible for their portion of the creek. However if it’s backing up there’s issues and somebody should step in to resolve it.”

Residents said they were given no notice to clear their culverts.

“This is never happened in 14 years,” Don Hickey said. “I never thought of cleaning it out because I never thought this much water would come through.”

“I just don’t understand why they just can’t let us know?”

Glen Hornseth, who has lived on Heimlich Road for 22 years, was the only property that had yet to be flooded.

Hornseth said he has kept his culvert clear to prevent potential flooding, especially living close to Mission Creek.

Meuss said he called the City’s after-hours emergency number and was told no one would be attending to the issue tonight, but the flooding issue was the neighbourhood’s problem.

Global News’ attempts to reach the City Wednesday night were unsuccessful.