There are now about 400 people in Cache Creek who are on evacuation alert, as concerns continue of potential flooding continue along the Bonaparte River.

Emergency Operations Centre spokesperson and village councillor Wendy Coomber says about 30 properties along the river were placed on alert late yesterday, impacting about 75 people.

“Potential flooding of the Collins Road area should the river breach its banks along with insufficient roads in and out, led to the decision to place them on alert,” Coomber says.

That adds to about 160 properties put on alert a day earlier.

Another 10 properties along Cache Creek also continue to be evacuated because of flooding, which includes a campground and two motels.

A flood warning continues to be in place for the Thompson Plateau, including the Bonaparte River which is flowing this morning at its highest rate of the season so far (56 cubic metres per second). The BC River Forecast Centre says the rate of snow melt has dropped slightly since Monday with temperatures down compared to the start of the week.

Meanwhile, Coomber says Cache Creek itself is not the same creek, after it has now flooded four times in the past six years.

She says for example, a two-year-old bridge to the Brookside Campground that runs over the creek was in danger this week.

“The bridge at Brookside, the water was flowing under it. And this year it came directly at it from a sharper angle and it was at danger of being undercut. A lot of the bank is fluffing away along the creek, so it’s not the same creek it was five years ago.”

Coomber says Cache Creek has cut a whole new channel because of flooding during the spring snow melt.