By Chad Klassen

Cherry Creek residents preparing for the worst as creek rises

Apr 30, 2018 | 5:17 PM

KAMLOOPS — Arnold Blair is on flood watch once again, keeping a close eye on levels in Cherry Creek, a year after the creek broke its bank last spring and caused widespread damage. 

With the help of friends and neighbourhoods and the New Afton Volunteer Fire Department, he’s filled about 1,000 sand bags that line the creek bed on Blair’s property. 

“Friday night I called for a load of sand. Actually we got two loads on Friday night,” notes Blair. “Saturday morning, we got busy. We were sandbagging all day. We’ve been through three truck loads to get our house safe. We figure it’s going to do the work for us. Hopefully it holds up.”

It’s preventative maintenance as Cherry Creek rises, which residents say has been happening since Thursday. 

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“They’re up. They drop a bit towards the late afternoon, but in the morning they’re up again, where’s it all coming from, we don’t know. We don’t know when it’ll peak,” says Blair. 

Dave Campbell from the B.C. River Forecast Centre says it’s hard to say when a smaller tributary like Cherry Creek will peak. It all depends on the weather, which it’s monitoring very closely.  

Locals say there is still nearly six feet of snow above them on Greenstone Mountain. At Corine LeBourdais’ place, this is the result of work they did over the winter and early spring, spending $10,000 to help prevent another disaster. 

“We looked at where the channel was, we’ve widened it as far as we can,” says LeBourdais. “We’ve used the trees that are already there. We left a lot of the bank we put in last year where it was and just fortified it.”

They hope it’s enough to keep the creek at bay, as does the rest of the community. Beaton road has already flooded and is closed for a second straight spring and the fear is, this is just the beginning.