Woman under an evacuation order in Cache Creek eager to get clean-up started

CACHE CREEK (NEWS1130) – Flash flooding has devastated the community of Cache Creek, and it’s not fully in the recovery phase yet. That’s because much of the area is still under an evacuation order.

Tashina Harkness’ family home was one of the hardest hit by the floods.

“I was living with my mom for a bit; I was getting ready to move into my own place June 1st. We’re just on the east TransCanada Highway,” she explains.

“The gully that the culvert came down on and all the flooding happened… that leads right into our yard. We’re at the very bottom of the gully. Everything that went down the road… all the trees and the light posts all came through our yard and continued on through our garage and took our garage with it. [It had] my whole apartment ready to move in it,” Harkness tells us.

She adds when the flash flooding happened on Saturday, she knew there was nothing she could do. “I just had to stay inside and wait for it to be over.”

“But watching your whole life being ripped away from you is really difficult. I, at a brief moment, went to go run outside because I didn’t want everything being ruined. My mom grabbed me back in and she just told me, ‘We need to stay safe and we need to let this pass.'”

“Our yard — when you step out of our house — we have about four feet of mud all throughout our yard. Four feet high… it’s more like concrete now,” she describes.

Harkness says there are about 60 fallen trees in her yard.

“We were told that we need to clean up our own yard; it is our responsibility. But then we were under an evacuation order. When we had Good Samaritans wanting to help us, wanting to let us use their equipment, we couldn’t do that. That was difficult, too, because you want to start the process of cleaning up. And we couldn’t. We were told that we weren’t allowed.”

The fact that they couldn’t begin to clean up has been very frustrating for her and her family. “You go through this life-changing exeprience and then you’re told that you just need to wait and watch your yard. You can’t do anything.”

“Being told, ‘Just be patient, just be patient. Things will come in a few days’ — that’s hard when it’s your whole life. It’s hard to just wait and be patient. But the community has really pulled together in the sense of support. This happened Saturday night and I had to go to work at 6:30 on Sunday morning. It has just been exhausting.”

She has been told the province will provide disaster financial assistance of around 80 per cent, but the clean-up is still her responsibility.