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Pemberton and Mount Currie get ready for the clean-up

With the worst of the flooding in the past people in Pemberton, Mount Currie and elsewhere are turning their minds to the massive cleanup operation that will need to take place.

With the worst of the flooding in the past people in Pemberton, Mount Currie and elsewhere are turning their minds to the massive cleanup operation that will need to take place.

The government has not yet released any figures for the damage, which includes washed out roads, damaged bridges up and down Howe Sound, damage to BC Rail lines, damage to parks and to Hydro operations including dams, spillways and culverts.

There is also the cost of helping the victims of the flood through disaster relief. Solicitor General Rich Coleman has put preliminary costs at a minimum of $25 million but most believe it could be significantly more.

Both Pemberton Mayor Elinor Warner and Mount Currie Chief Leonard Andrew said the response of the provincial government and the Department of Indian Affairs has been excellent.

"They have been tremendous," said Warner of the provincial government.

"We have had three cabinet ministers here and each one has said: Tell us what you need.’

"I couldn’t have asked for anything better."

To date Chief Andrew has had the same experience.

"The Department of Indian Affairs on our behalf responded and worked along with the Provincial Emergency Program officials and said, ‘Whatever your needs are we will respond.’

"So we are hoping that they live up to that."

Many in Mount Currie had returned home by Wednesday, but some houses are damaged beyond repair or, like Andrew’s own home, remain surrounded by a lake of water.

There is also a boil water advisory for both Pemberton and Mount Currie.

Mayor Warner said Pemberton responded very well to the emergency and plans fell into place quickly.

While the community has dealt with floods before, in 1984 and 1991 most recently, the populations were much smaller. In 1984 there were only 323 people living in Pemberton. Now there are almost 2,000 with up to another 5,000 in outlying areas and Mount Currie.

At deadline two subtropical weather systems had dropped over 500 millimetres of rain in a seven day period, causing the region’s rivers and creeks to flood and leaving four people dead.

In Pemberton 285 people have registered with the evacuation centre. All have been billeted out to homes. It is hoped that evacuees in both Pemberton and Mount Currie, which evacuated about 500, will be allowed home for the weekend, as long as forecasts for fair weather hold.

There will be a meeting for Pemberton residents tonight at 7 p.m. so all can learn more about applying for disaster relief.

Those in Mount Currie can get more information at the Band Office.

Earlier this week Coleman warned that government compensation would not be available for property owners who didn’t buy insurance to cover things that can be insured.

Teams of inspectors will also be making the rounds to make sure there are no problems with power as people move back into their homes.

Some residents of Pemberton chose not to leave their homes as the flood approached last Friday.

Jordan Sturdy of North Arm Farm was one of them. While he sent his wife and two daughters to stay with a relative he watched the waters advance on his farm.

"I’ve known this was going to happen for a long time just given the structure of the diking system here," said Sturdy surveying his 56-acre fresh fruit, produce, and small animal farm just a few minutes north of Pemberton.

"It came over the pumpkin field first and came ripping down the road.

"It looked like a big brown tongue of water just hooking down the hill and it filled up the whole middle of our farm.

"It was like a big brown wave coming at us, then it went in a channel and down towards the driveway and that’s when it took the driveway out. That went from having no water on it to having eight feet of water on it in 40 minutes.

"There was a standing wave three foot tall. You could have surfed it." The floodwater, which overflowed from the Lillooet River, will have a devastating effect on North Arm Farm, a local landmark and a favourite place for local families to visit.

"There is probably 30 acres of water out there, which is on top of my asparagus and strawberries, and that water is not going away," said Sturdy.

"We might not have strawberries next year. I have put five years of work into the asparagus and this is our first year of harvest and so this is catastrophic in terms of those two crops."

Then there’s the enormous Pumpkin patch which just about every child in Whistler and Pemberton were about to descend on.

"They were just picked up by the force of the water and off they went," said Sturdy.

As the flood approached Pemberton people with horses loaded them and drove them to the local outdoor ice-arena where they remain stabled.

But many other farm animals are still trapped on pockets of dry land around the community.

Pat Kelly had to leave his home in the North Arm area of Pemberton.

"At about six o’clock on Saturday night a fireman came and said it was time to go," said Kelly.

"We had been putting stuff up high for while. We looked at the river and you kind of sensed that it wasn’t good so we had been moving things slowly.

But when the call came we had a couple of friends come by and help us raise some of the furniture off the floor and we threw together a change of clothes and some food and off we went."

Kelly and his family checked into a friend’s home to wait out the flood. Their friends, meanwhile, were trapped in Vancouver thanks to the washout of Highway 99.

"The water came right up to the edge of the house but it didn’t get in above the crawl space," said Kelly.

"We were very luckily. It didn’t affect us the way it affected some of the other people around.

"I’ve lived here eight years and this is the first time I have experienced the floods.

"I think the town is taking this with a modicum of good humour and patience.

"I think there is a sense that this is going to happen and you make the best of it you can and when somebody gets into trouble you go and help them.

"There are all kinds of people sandbagging and the people who have been trough this before have been very helpful."