The city of Merritt will be announcing a plan for a phased return home for people who have been evacuated some time today, Nov. 22.

It comes as staff have finished assessing the damage to properties affected by floods. All homes have been given a green, yellow, or red tag, indicating whether people will be able to return back or not.

“We will be announcing our plan to do a phased rescission of the evacuation order and to start bringing some Merrittonians home,” Information Officer, Greg Lowis said. “So some Merrittonians will hear today about when they can come back to their homes.”

People with a “green” property will soon be allowed back, while those with a “yellow” property will be told what else needs to be done before they can gain access. Owners of “red” properties will likely remain evacuated for an extended period.

City staff also say that whatever is released today is just the plan for return, meaning people may not actually be allowed back Monday.

Speaking on the NL Morning News, Lowis says when some people are allowed to return home, it will be to a much different looking city.

“[People] will need to undergo different activities in their normal live because they will be subject to boil water restrictions,” he said. “We’ll be asking them to use as little water as possible, to put as little down the sewage as possible. They will find that they cannot access large parts of the city, that a lot of services won’t be available to them.”

Staff in Merritt say the weather has so far been cooperative which has helped them get to the point where they can release plans to begin returning people home.

“Now that the damage assessments are complete, we’ll be able to begin rolling out our official City of Merritt return to home plan,” Mayor Linda Brown said, in a video update Sunday night. “We are extremely pleased to be able to release this plan to the public.”

“Bringing Merrittonians home has been our first priority and we will be able to bring some of you home in the next few days. We will be extending this across more of the City as soon as we can.”

Brown is continuing to ask people to be patient as crews work to get the water and wastewater systems back online.

“These tests [to the water system] take a minimum of 24 hours to complete as they literally involve letting any bacteria in the sample grow before seeing what happens. We are driving them over to Kelowna to a laboratory which is staying open over the weekend, especially for us,” she said. “The results so far are good but we need to bring more of the system online.”

“We are also very close to getting the wastewater treatment plant back online and have spent more time today flushing debris from the lines. Everyday brings us a little bit closer to rebuilding our community. Rest assured, we will inform you once we know more.”

Brown is still encouraging Merrittonians who haven’t registered with Emergency Social Services to do so as well.

The entire City of about 7,000 people had to be evacuated last Monday after relentless rain caused the Coldwater River to overrun its banks.

– With files from Jeff Andreas