The Village of Cache Creek says around 300 residents have been evacuated because of the risk of flooding on the Bonaparte River.
Cache Creek Emergency Operations Centre Information Officer, Wendy Coomber, says the village ordered the evacuation of 128 properties along Old Cariboo Road, Nugget Road and Collins Road, as well as the entire Sage and Sands Trailer Park on Tuesday afternoon.
The new orders affect the following residences:
- 944 and 956 Old Cariboo Rd.
- 1055 Old Cariboo Rd. — all units.
- 1253 Old Cariboo Rd. — all units.
- 1321 Old Cariboo Rd. — all units.
- 1222, 1228, 1234, 1246, 1258, 1260, and 1272 Nugget Rd.
- 811, 825, 828, 840, 842, 872, 888, 890, 886, 896, 904 and 908 Collins Rd.
- 701 Trans-Canada Highway — all units.
Either other properties along Cache Creek itself remain on evacuation order as well.
“We’re experiencing a historic high in the level of the Bonaparte River, which really doesn’t come as a surprise since we had such an incredible flow from Cache Creek this year,” Coomber said. “Our little creek ran like a river, and now our river is running quite higher than normal as well.”
“There is some water starting to pool in the affected areas. It’s not a major concern yet but the river does continue to rise.”
Coomber says the Village of Cache Creek is in close contact with the BC River Forecast Centre
“They are expecting [river levels] to go somewhat higher, they’re not sure how high though,” she added. “They revised the forecast for the river yesterday. The first forecast was, ‘it’s skyrocketing’ and the second was a more moderate sort of rise.”
“We’re all waiting and hoping that it’s not going to get any higher than it already is. It’s still mostly within its banks. There is a little sprinkling here and there on properties but nothing too major yet.”
Mayor John Ranta says work to sandbag to try to keep the Bonaparte from spilling over has been ongoing for a while, with crews and locals doing their best to ensure that river doesn’t cause any additional damage.
“They put out thousands of sandbags over the last two or three days,” Ranta said. “We’re cautiously optimistic that that will prevent damage to those homes.”
“[The River has] a huge watershed that it gets its water from. With the rain and the warmer temperatures, we anticipate that the Bonaparte will come up quite significantly.”
People who have been evacuated are being told to go to McArthur Island in Kamloops, though Coomber says a number of them have been able to stay with friends and family.
The state of local emergency in Cache Creek has also been extended to at least May 13.
“The record [water level] that was set in 1990 was broken a couple of days ago,” Coomber said. “I believe it was 88 cubes per second and we’re at 102 now. The 102 isn’t a steady flow. It comes in sort of literally waves.”
“We’re expecting some lovely warm weather starting today and heading into the weekend. We’re told that most of the snow is gone, but you never know, its not an exact science, so we could still have some flooding.”
The Village Office is closed to the public until further notice while staff respond to the current flooding situation, though people can still phone the office at 250-457-6237.
For the latest on flooding information in Cache Creek, go here or to the Village of Cache Creek Facebook page here.