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Some evacuation orders rescinded in B.C. Interior


Digital writers
theweathernetwork.com

Sunday, May 20, 2018, 10:02 PM - After weeks of battling rising flood waters, even to the point of having to call from assistance from the army, hundreds of evacuees in the B.C. Interior will be allowed home.

The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary announced on Sunday that it was rescinding evacuation orders for 175 properties in Grand Forks after inspection, allowing some 350 people to return home. Later the same day, another 415 properties at Christina Lake were downgraded from evacuation orders, covering some 830 people.

"We are now completely focussed on getting as many people back home and back into their business as soon as it's safe for them," Roly Russell, the chair of the regional district's board of directors, said in a release Sunday. "The stress has been enormous for everyone, and getting home is the first of many steps toward recovering from this disaster."



The Canadian Forces, who had been deployed to the area to help with sandbagging, announced on Twitter that they had been informed their assistance was no longer necessary. Those troops have returned to base in Vernon to "prepare for new tasks in the Lake Okanagan region."

But it's not over for that part of the region yet. Many of the rescinded evacuation orders were downgraded to evacuation alerts, meaning residents must be ready to leave at a moment's notice if new evacuations are ordered. As well, some 1,000 evacuation orders were still in effect for communities in the regional district, with 2,000 people affected.

As well, several flood watches and warnings were still in effect according to the B.C. River Forecast Centre. Among them was a flood warning for Boundary and a flood watch for Kootenay.

WATCH BELOW: Thousands evacuate as hydroelectric dam construction leads to flooding


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