Key takeaways:
- Abbotsford to reveal its proposed plan for future flood mitigation on Monday.
- Martin O’Brien, 71, looks at the garden at his former residence of 31 years in the North Ruckle area of Grand Forks, B.C.
- The city seized his property in February due to flood threats in a process known as ‘managed retreat.’
The flowers at Martin O’Brien’s former house in Grand Forks, B.C., are flowering, though no one stays there anymore to plant them.
The whole area is being emptied, down to fire hydrants and every final piece of pipe beyond and below ground. Some houses have been moved, some picked apart by salvagers, and others, like O’Brien’s, are slated to be torn down. The 71-year-old has stopped by to save some pansies.
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“My pansies are beautiful, and tulips are opening already,” he stated, digging them out and placing them in a pot for the small terrace of the new flat he found in seniors’ housing a few minutes away.
O’Brien’s home was one of nearly 90 properties purchased or confiscated by the city after the May 2018 floods that soaked the North Ruckle neighborhood and most of downtown Grand Forks in B.C.’s southern Interior.
Source – cbc.ca
