WATCH: High streamflow advisories remained in effect Wednesday for parts of Vancouver Island. Dean Stoltz has more.
Carolyn Soucie has been surveying French Creek a lot since Sunday night. The creek runs right behind her property on River Crescent but is now separated from her home by a wall of sandbags.
“Very alarming, I?ve only lived here for two-and-a-half months and when we bought the property it was a tiny little creek and I used to call it the babbling brook, yeah so it was very alarming,” said Soucie.
She?s referring to what happened Sunday evening. That?s when water in the creek got so high it went over the banks, under her home and right through her property.
“It jumped the bank, that was at 4:30, and by 6:30 the river had diverged and was streaming down the length of the driveway, pooling up at the end of the cul-de-sac and then going into the other people?s property and flooding their basements.” she added.
A team of friends helped her and her husband Ryan build a wall out of over 1,000 sandbags.
Since then the creek has remained within its banks.
The Regional District of Nanaimo downgraded the flood risk Wednesday afternoon even though a High Streamflow Advisory remained in effect for parts of East Vancouver Island.
“I?ve been here for 27 years, I?ve got an acre up the road at the end of the cul-de-sac and I?ve never seen it this high,” said local resident Ron Roberts. “Today it?s down but two nights ago it was pretty high here.”
And another storm that was supposed to hit the area today with heavy rains dissipated.
The City of Courtenay had rolled out its Aqua Dam Tuesday to hold back floodwaters from the Browns, Tsolum and Puntledge rivers that converge in downtown Courtenay.
In the end, the waters did not rise but the dam will remain in place into December.
Dean Stoltz
