West Vancouver flood victims clean up mucky mess

Sam Haydahl, 83, and a friend pick through Haydahl's garage. The two men work to get the deep freezer flipped right-side-up.

"It started to floatand it flipped," he said, noting that it kept runninguntil power to the entire area was later cut.

• PHOTOS:West Vancouver homes evacuated after heavy rain causes flooding
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Haydahl has lived in the house on Ross Lane since 1958and thankfully, only his shop-garage was inundated early Wednesday morning.

Sometime after midnight, debris swept up by73 millimetres of rain and hail plugged a section of Willow Creek at Keith Road and Marine Drive and sent water washing over22 properties below, according to West Vancouver officials.

Four houses were evacuated by first responders, but nobody was injured.

Many of the items stuffed into Haydahl'sgarage were damaged by hip-deep water and mud.

"A lot of this stuff has to goto the dump," he said on Wednesday.

For many of his neighbours, the situation was much worse. Driveways, garages, pools, yards andbasements were covered in waist deep water. When itwashed away, a thick layer of mud coated the ground.

Afshin Tajbakhsh's waterfront home stillhad a large pool in the driveway and garage midday Wednesday.

He has had the home on the market for about two years, andit's now listed at nearly $10.9 million.

Tajbakhshsaid thefurnished basement was completely filled with water.

Real estate agentAmin Sabounchihad planned to show the home to a client, but was cancelled due to the flooding.

"I was really looking forward to showing it today," he said and notedthat maybe now his client could get a good deal.

Sabounchi estimated that repairs would costTajbakhsh or his insurer about $500,000.

One-in-25-year event

District of West Vancouver spokesman Jeff McDonald said the rain on Tuesday night was a one-in-25-year event.

"This is what we'd call an extreme weather event, and we've seen itbefore, it happens from time to time, and it's probably fair to say it's happening more often," he said.

"Infrastructure is there to deal with these events and it deals with these events successfully almost all the time. From time to time, regrettably, sadly, events conspire to overwhelm infrastructure, and it looks like that's what happened in this case."

It was unclear on Wednesday whether the damaged homes would be covered by insurance. Homeowners had mixed views on whether they expected to be footing the bills.

McDonald wouldn't say whether there would be any help for homeowners stuck with major costs.

West Vancouver homes evacuated after heavy rain causes flooding

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Heavy rain flooded parts of the Caulfeild neighbourhood early Wednesday morning.

"We'll take care of the infrastructure, of courseand make changes if we need to but damage to homes, that's really a conversation between homeowners and their insurers," he said.

McDonald said incidents like this may forcethe district rethink exactly where and how development is permitted.

"I think it's fair to say that climate change and weather events will need to be taken into account as communities develop their official community plans and as they either create, or modify existing zoning."