It’s been more than two weeks since water seeped through the baseboards and poured through the front door of Garry Norris’s house during heavy rains — filling his home with a foot and a half of water — and he still has no idea when his family can move back home.
“The information changes day to day,” Norris said, standing outside his workshed at the Halalt First Nation where dozens of tools he uses for canoe carving were submerged in more than four feet of water. It’s the changing information that’s hard on everybody, he said.
The floor of his one-storey home is still covered in a layer of wet mud after record rains hit the Cowichan Valley in late January. About 67 millimetres of rain fell in North Cowichan from late Jan. 30 to early Feb. 1.
Floods in the valley caused the Cowichan Valley Regional District to declare a local state of emergency — which ended on Saturday — closed a section of the Trans-Canada Highway north of Duncan and displaced dozens of people from their homes.
The majority of people have returned to their homes, but Norris and his family are part of a small group whose houses have been deemed unsafe. “Do not enter or occupy,” reads a red notice that was posted on the door on Feb. 5. “This structure has been inspected for life safety purposes only and found to be seriously damaged and is unsafe to occupy.” The notice lists water damage, mold and electrical as hazards.
Norris, his son, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren have been staying in hotels since the flood, and don’t know when they’ll be able to return home.
“It’s impacted us a lot,” said Norris’s son, Carl Norris. “It’s not home.”
They were told in the first days after the flood that the house would need to be demolished. Now, Norris said he’s hearing that the province will help remove the drywall in an attempt to dry his walls and insulation. But there’s no word on a timeline and Norris is feeling frustrated.
“We need a lot of help. It’s just slow coming. I don’t know why,” he said. “We’re not getting any answers about what’s going on and who’s doing what.”
Norris said his information comes from Emergency Management B.C., via the Halalt band council.
“I wanted to come back in and start cleaning up the day after, but they said, ‘No, we’ll have somebody come and do it,’ ” Norris said.
That didn’t happen, and Norris has been at the house every day for the last week packing up wet clothes and belongings and moving items into a storage locker.
When the flooding began around 2 a.m., they didn’t have much time to gather their possessions before evacuating by boat.
“My son woke me up and he says: ‘Dad, the water is almost up to the third step [outside],” Carl Norris said. “We only had a matter of minutes and then water slowly started to seep into the floors.”
They had just enough time to grab a change of clothes each before a firefighter arrived, wading through chest-deep water in their front yard, to tell them a rescue boat was on its way.
They were evacuated to the Island Savings Centre in Duncan, which was set up as an emergency reception centre for the night. The next day they moved to a hotel in Ladysmith for a few days, and then to a hotel closer to home in Chemainus, where they remain.
Norris said he just wants some answers about when the work can start to repair the damage to his home.
“It won’t be over until we move home, and even then it may not be the same.”
The Halalt First Nation reserve is built on low-lying land protected by dykes that failed under the heavy rains, leaving the area vulnerable to future flooding.
More than one-quarter of the 220 Halalt First Nation residents were displaced during the flood. The majority of those people have returned to their homes, but some — like Norris — are still left waiting for answers.
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