Help in Time of Need

Neighbors are helping neighbors today in flood-ravaged Britannia Beach. At least 50 houses are flood-damaged and about 20 of them are uninhabitable. About 40 people are homeless.

"The town is a mess," said construction worker Bob Clapp as he surveyed his wrecked cottage. "I've lost my pickup truck and my trailer and everything in my house. I've even had to borrow the clothes that I'm wearing." And like most householders in the village of 350, Clapp didn't have flood insurance.

The devastation began Thursday when Britannia creek burst

leaks after 50 millimeters (two inches) of rain fell in less than 24

hours. The torrent of flood water carved itself a new route along

what used to be the old creek bed straight through town.

As the water fanned out, it spread thousands of tones of gravel that buried at least a dozen vehicles, as well as gardens, tennis courts and basements.

"Wipe your feet before you leave" said welder Willard Cockwell, whose living room was under five centimeters of mud, "My bed was floating in about two feet of water on Friday and my basement still has about six feet of water. Cockwell called it the worst flood he's seen in 15 years. Now he's homeless, but he was still able to laugh at how a

neighbor's cat saved itself. "On Friday l came back and found this black cat that had been using a suitcase in my living room as a life raft", he said.

Ralph Fulber, president of the Britannia Beach Community Association and a volunteer firefighter, was amazed no one was hurt. "Volunteer firemen were up their necks in water hauling out people from their homes," he said. "You can't even get into the church to pray for better weather," he said.

Fulber and town hero "Crazy" George McLaren used a front-end loader to rescue a man who was trapped on a van in the creek.

"The guy was out there all night with his dog and we were worried they would be swept away," Fulber said. So he and McLaren rigged a ladder from the bucket of the loader to the roof of the van to allow the unidentified man and his dog to escape. "The guy was pretty happy to get out of there," Mclaren said. McLaren, who said yesterday he had slept three hours in the past 36, said he likes to run on adrenaline. Added Fulbur: "Now you know why they call him Crazy George."

In Squamish and Pemberton about 150 people evacuated by helicopter on Friday returned to their homes yesterday. In Pemberton, the banks of Ryan Creek were being repaired last night after it overflowed and flooded the airport, damaging half a dozen small airplanes, BC Rail employees are working around the clock to reopen the main line between North Vancouver and Lillooet, shut by a dozen washouts. Highway 99 washed out in two places between Horseshoe Bay and Squamish reopened late Friday.