Residents of Maple Creek, Sask. are cleaning up after last week’s massive flooding, but with Environment Canada issuing a storm watch for the area, all the clean up might be for naught.
They’re trying to salvage what they can, but most of their possessions need to be thrown out.
Brenda Moorhead’s family has already deal with a lot over the past week.
“It’s just overwhelming,” she said. “We buried our father on Thursday and this happened Friday. I mean, how much more can a person take?”
Instead of grieving for her father, she and her family are cleaning and bringing all their destroyed household items to her mother’s front lawn.
The tiny town of 2,600 saw up to 200 homes affected by last week’s flood. Basements were the hardest hit.
Larry Empey of Service master cleaning said there is a lot of mess to clean up.
“They’ve been in at least two feet of water, so most things are contaminated so we can’t salvage that stuff,” Empey explained. “So we’re just throwing it out, and trying to get everything in a safe state of living so people can remain in their homes.”
Residents spent Monday pumping water from their homes, but once the water is gone, mud and debris will need to be cleaned up too. Many residents are still in disbelief over what happened.
“We were in Vancouver and we thought it was going to be high tides in Vancouver,” Paul Schafers explained. “That’s why we left and came here, and this was the last thing we expected to happen.”
The town has declared a state of emergency, and the Mayor says they will likely quality for provincial assistance. Meanwhile, residents in up to 150 homes are still on evacuation order.
“It’s still on,” Mayor Barry Rudd said. “We still have people out of their homes. Until we get the inspection in, until the electrical has been inspected.”
Even with all the devastation, some residents are still remarkably optimistic.
“We’re hanging in there,” Brenda Andreas said. “My mother is very optimistic that when we get this mess cleaned up, we’ll carry on because that’s what you do on the prairies.”
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