This flash flood has taken its toll on everyone in the Valley, including residents, farmers, and local businesses. Several businesses sustained damage as a result of floodwaters and are working together to try to salvage what is left. Dan Grazier of Grazier Manufacturing was one of the businesses that took a hard hit from the flooding in the area.
“My business was literally and figuratively underwater,” said Grazier. “There is substantial building damage and we’re just starting to sort out the equipment damage. It’s fairly substantial and so is the damage our neighbours have sustained.”
Grazier knew there was some heavy rainfall in the forecast and that it had created some flooding issues, but he had no idea of the magnitude of how much water and how quickly it would come his way.
“We had a regular work day on Monday, June 8, and I had some suspicions the water might come, but I actually didn’t think it would,” said Grazier. “There were some flooding issues at the Cargill turnoff, but that is a fair distance away. There were lots of ditches for that water to fill up along the way, so I didn’t think it was actually possible. I was where the flood started.
“I had started scratching around the storm drains in case the water did come, it would start flowing in there. That afternoon, the roads were bare and dry. At 4 p.m., I noticed some trickling down the roads, along the outer sides. Then by 5 p.m., there were thick streams coming down both sides of the road and shortly after, there was some pooling between my shop and Co-op.
“Whenever we see a heavy rain or spring thaw, it will usually flood out across the street,” said Grazier. “I started to realize that this was beginning to be a bit of a problem. I talked to Mayor Jacobson to confirm that water is coming in and that there might be a problem. I sent him a picture and had already gone home for the day. When I checked my security cameras, I noticed the water around it and told him I was about 10 minutes away from losing our office.
“He activated things very quickly and got sandbags down here. By the time I got to our office, it had already been swallowed up by the water. People were showing up to sandbag, including an army of young people. We were too late to save our office, so we started helping our neighbours sandbag. There were an unbelievable number of people from the community helping out. I was shocked by the number of young people who came to help out and did a lot of grunt work.”
In a time of a natural disaster and crisis of this magnitude, Grazier is proud of the efforts made by those who were helping each other out all around the Valley. Thanks to the teamwork efforts by everyone in the community, people are starting to get back into their homes and businesses.
“We tried to minimize the damage and I think everyone is doing ok,” said Grazier. “There is some building damage all around; further up the street, it looks a little better. Most of the businesses in this area are back in the buildings, cleaning up with a lot of work ahead of them. We’ve been stripping walls all week here at our office.
“Louisiana Pacific has been really good to us and offered some labour and their summer students to help us with stuff where we needed some more hands. We’ve been helping each other as we go. It has been a couple of late nights, but a real community effort. Countless people came to help who had no real affiliation with the businesses per se, but came as good people trying to help out. For once, I’m at a loss for words.
“We were shoulder to shoulder in mud and water, helping one another out,” said Grazier. “It might not be our property, but we are friends and work with these people every day, and care about each other here. Even though our property took in a lot of water, people still wanted to try and help us any way they could.”
Through community efforts, the water is subsiding and moving on.
“We were pumping water steadily last Friday,” said Grazier. “I figure we took in about eight inches of water. When they cut the railway and bypass, it really lowered the level of water around here. Now we have water just on the sides of the roads. There’s still lots of work to be done.
“We’ve been trying to pump out the low spots of water because whenever people would drive through the water, it would send it back into buildings. So people driving down here to take a look at what happened was a real problem in terms of the water coming back in. Once the road got cut, we saw the water drastically drop, so we cut back on the pumps. At the time, we weren’t sure if that was going to happen, and we were focused on trying to get the water away from the buildings so people could get back in them. Until the water went down, businesses couldn’t put forward a full effort into cleaning up.
“I just want to put a focus on the help that has been offered to us personally and around town,” said Grazier. “It has been remarkable. We are in the process of testing out our equipment to see what needs replacing. We are like a lot of people, not insured for overland flooding and a lot of people are scared about that and what it means for them.
“We were working to get to a point where we could set up some fans and dehumidifiers and dry things out over the weekend. We needed a bit of a breather and hoped this would help dry out our building, and then we plan to go help others in the Valley. There are a lot of people who are looking for and need help right now.
“I am so proud of everyone here and the community support,” said Grazier. “We will get through this.”