People in the British Columbia community of Grand Forks are hustling to get ahead of a deluge of melting snow and rain after learning a costly lesson about flooding five years ago.
Meanwhile, parts of Cache Creek remain inundated by floodwaters.
Grand Forks, not far from the Canada-U.S. border, is one of many communities under threat in B.C.'s southern and central Interior.
A week of record temperatures followed by rain have combined to create conditions ripe for flooding.
Grand Forks Mayor Everett Baker says officials with the city of about 4,100 residents been shoring up its defences since the spring of 2018, when 95 homes were lost to a flood.
So far, 10 properties in the city are under evacuation order while another 34 have been placed on evacuation alert due to flood risk.
The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary has issued an alert for an additional 591 properties affecting an estimated 1,182 people in the surrounding area.
Baker says residents and officials in Grand Forks are keeping a close eye on the weather and focusing on areas of the downtown to protect businesses and infrastructure from rising waters in the Kettle and Granby rivers.
He says the province has supplied the city with temporary dams and sandbags, which were being installed with the help of a crew from the BC Wildfire Service.
Parts of the village of Cache Creek and Okanagan Indian Band land are already under water that's flooded homes, businesses and Cache Creek's firehall.
Mayor John Ranta said that what's normally babbling brook has become a raging river and setting up barriers hasn't kept the floodwaters at bay.
An update posted to the village's Facebook page says 21 properties have been evacuated, with more on alert as floodwaters cut through the downtown.
Highways 1 and 97 had been closed in both directions as they intersect Cache Creek, but the routes reopened Thursday night to single-lane alternating traffic.
To the east, the Okanagan Indian Band placed several properties on evacuation order in the neighbourhood of Parker Cove, west of Vernon, where it says floodwaters from Whiteman Creek have eroded land and undercut trees.
In Grand Forks, the mayor said he's confident the city's flood mitigation efforts will stave off the worst case scenario, though he knows others have been hard hit.
"I've been watching what's going on in Cache Creek and other communities," Baker said. "I empathize because we were there."
He said his daughter's home was affected in the last major flood, giving the mayor both a personal and professional perspective on the stress of dealing with catastrophes.
"Myself and council and our city staff decided this time that we were going to try to be as proactive as possible and get out the protection that we can sooner than later," he said. "Then hopefully we'll have done enough to protect the city."
In an update Thursday, Minister of Emergency Management Bowinn Ma said Grand Forks had done an "enormous amount" of flood mitigation work, which other communities could emulate.
She said the upgrade to the diking system is one important measure, but their flood mitigation strategy is about much more.
"They've actually actively worked with community members to move properties out of flood prone areas in a strategy known as planned retreat," Ma said. "These are very important strategies, they are difficult for communities to work through, and Grand Forks has managed to do that."
