Lumby, B.C. area residents disappointed by lack of flood prevention help

Flooding in the Whitevale Road area south of Lumby, B.C., has become a regular problem during the spring melt.

However, residents say their attempts to get government officials to help with flood prevention have been ignored.

During the melt, resident Terry Headington is often forced out of her home when the property is cut off by flood water.

“I don’t like it at all.”

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She’s among the residents of the Whitevale Road area south of Lumby who are concerned about the nearby creek regularly spilling its banks during freshet.

The breach is near her home but the flood water also flows through fields towards other residential areas.

Headington is concerned that if the issue isn’t addressed she’ll lose more land to erosion and the water will “cause more havoc” in other areas further down Whitevale Road closer to Lumby.

Her neighbour, Keith Altwasser, points out that while creek water is currently swamping the fields and outbuildings around Headington’s house, it’s been worse.

This year is only an average year for high water in the creek, Altwasser said.

“All that water is going down to the subdivision down Whitevale (Road), which is north of us, and if it was an extreme high water they would be flooded out like last year,” Altwasser said.

Some residents would like to see the creek bank built up to prevent the annual flood problem and have reached out to officials for help.

But the residents say they haven’t had much response from the regional or provincial governments.

“It is kind of sad actually. Very sad,” said Headington, of the lack of government response.

The province says long-term flood mitigation is led by local and regional governments who can request provincial funding.

But in a statement, the regional district, which serves as the rural area’s local government, said protecting private property from flooding is the homeowners’ responsibility and it is “not going to install permanent works on private property.”

The Regional District of North Okanagan said its staff have met with landowners in the area and informed them that they would need to get provincial approval to install erosion protection on the creek.

Altwasser argued authorities may be overlooking the problem because it only impacts a couple of dozen properties.

“That’s a huge issue,” said Altwasser.