Residents in the Cherry Creek area are hoping to avoid a third straight year of spring flooding.

A number of residents are doing their own repairs on their properties with supervision from a hydrologist.

TNRD Area Director Ronaye Elliott is hoping for the best, saying residents can’t keep doing repairs every year.

“They can’t financially do it, but pretty soon they won’t have any property left,” she said. “We want to help them get at least stable again.”

Elliott adds a number of residents are also taking precautions to help prevent flooding, like putting sandbags on their properties before the creek floods.

“So anywhere that you have a burn and no soil to hold back the water, the water can go wherever it wants,” Elliott added. “In many cases, it can bring down the rest of the hillside.”

“Once you get a fire like they had at Ashcroft towards Clinton last year, that’s a make up for a lot of damage if we get a bad spring.”

The province is working to replace bridges in the Cherry Creek area that were wiped out by flooding last year.

Elliott says as a general rule, if it rains in April, the creek will flood in May.