By Adam Donnelly

Merritt remains vigilant, hoping they’re through the worst of the high water

May 18, 2018 | 5:30 PM

MERRITT — For many residents in Merritt, this long weekend won’t be much of holiday. While it appears the worst of the high water could be over, many who live on the banks of the Nicola River remain vigilant, hoping they might soon be able to start cleaning up after this record flood year.

“There’s not a lot you can you when you get this kind of water. It’s not like you can dyke the entire Nicola watershed.”

It’s been a tense week for the Merritt’s Chief Executive Officer, but Shawn Bovan, who also the Emergency Operations Centre Director for the city is hoping his community is through the worst of the high water.

“When 42.5 cubic metres per second is being released, that’s when we start to see some wetness in some ditches and that’s the number where we get kind of concerned,” Bovan explained. “This year we’ve almost doubled that [streamflow volume].”

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This year marks the second year of record-setting floods in the Nicola Valley community, after once in a century flood event in 2017.

“When the temperatures got really warm at the end of April and early May, we had a very rapid snowmelt,” Flood Safety Engineer with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Sarah Simon explained. “All that water came into the system very quickly, and all our inflows grew to larger than they were last year.

Simo is in charge of regulating how much water passes through the Nicola Lake Dam. She says this year’s stream flow has been set 50% higher than it was last spring – 75 cu. m/s in 2018, compared to just 50 cu. m/s in 2017 – in order to keep up with the fast-rising Nicola Lake.

“The rate of rise in the reservoir was faster than last year, and last year we set records. By a lot,” Simon told CFJC Today. “Getting all that water in such a short period of time, it was inevitable that we would have a very high reservoir, as well as high flows downstream.”

While it seems the worst has passed – according to Simon, the inflow to Nicola Lake has fallen, which means she’ll be able to reduce the flow through the dam – the community is still taking precautions to ensure the safety of its residents. Bovan says the community has really banded together, laying nearly 100,000 sandbags in order to protect the city and private property.

“Public works has made sandbags and sand available at the Civic Centre. The community’s really come together on this one, helping each other out,” Bovan said. “We’ve had crews from Public Works on 24/7, since the beginning of the event, filling pumps, checking dykes, looking for seepage. It’s an all=out assault on this.”

For any residents who have experienced any property damage or losses in Merritt, the province’s Disaster Financial Assistance is available at www.gov.bc.ca/disasterfinancialassistance.