The recent floods caused by the hot weather are washing out roads in the Pressy Lake area, according to residents on the scene.
On Wednesday, April 22 the 100 Mile Free Press talked with Lorne Smith after he snapped a few photos of the road underwater that afternoon. Smith and his wife Cheryl Merriman first moved to Pressy Lake in May of 2017 after retirement, just about a month before the wildfires took their home, which has since been rebuilt and occupied by them since 2019.
“This year we had, from what I hear, a little above normal snowpack. We had about three feet of snow here and it hung on until about two weeks ago when temperatures got really warm and everything melted pretty quickly,” Smith said. “This last week it’s really come up the river in the area and now the lake is up about, I’m guessing, at least five feet and there are docks underwater.”
In addition to the lake rising, he said the roads are starting to be washed out by the flood all around them, trapping them in place. Smith said they’re under no evacuation order and even if there was he wouldn’t take a car through the water right now, though some people have been driving on it with their trucks.
To give an idea of how fast this happened, Smith said that on Tuesday, April 21 there was no water on the road and as of Wednesday it was being washed out and was only going to get worse, in his opinion. If he had to guess, he thinks it will be completely washed out within the week.
Road crews are working in the area, Smith said, as he saw some workers use cement blocks to secure a nearby bridge from being washed away entirely. Now though he said the water is simply diverted to a 100 yards south of the bridge and washing the area out.
From what he’s heard over social media, roads all over the area are washing out due to the melting snow and ice an event that is happening across the Cariboo, including in 150 Mile House.
“We’re getting used to the adversity here. The fire taking us and now we just get back into the house and there’s the coronavirus and now the flood,” Smith said ruefully.
Smith, along with other members of the community, are checking on neighbours, especially elderly ones, to make sure they’re ok as the water is getting near the edge of many people’s yards.