Flood insurance is likely extremely hard to come by for many people in Cache Creek, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

IBC Pacific region vice president Aaron Sutherland made that comment last week, as more than 160 properties were on evacuation alert for a third time this year, and a dozen properties were evacuated.

“If you know a home is going to flood every five or 10 years, you really can’t create an affordable product for those folks. And therefore many of the residents of Cache Creek, unfortunately, likely don’t have flood insurance for their home and will be forced to rely on government disaster assistance. And that’s quite limited.”

Sutherland says the IBC wants the federal and provincial governments to create a national flood program, to ensure there’s coverage for people who need it.

“That would ensure that all Canadians, regardless of where you live and the level of risk you face, have access to flood insurance for their home. So that when we see the challenges like we’re seeing in Cache Creek and other parts of the province today, people have more access to the financial resources they need.”

Wendy Coomber, spokesperson for the Emergency Operations Centre in Cache Creek, says it has been a very unusual year for the Bonaparte River.

“It peaked in April and we thought that that was it, but then it came back and it peaked again in May, almost as high, and then in July it came back for a third time and peaked a little bit higher than the first two.”

As of today, a high streamflow advisory remains in place for the Bonaparte River, according to the BC River Forecast Centre, with the river flowing at 49 cubic metres per second. That’s down from more than 70 m3/s from eight days ago.

(Photo: Facebook, Amanda Cosburn)

– with files from Victor Kaisar