'We just didn't have a hope': B.C. flood victims struggle with rising water levels

UPDATES: Interior braces for more flooding as weather warms up​

Westbridge resident Debbie Hachey has been living in B.C.'s Kootenay-Boundary region for 40 years and had never seen flooding as extreme as this year's.

Officials say the flooding is the worst since 1948, when much of southeast B.C. was under water and entire towns were destroyed.  

"What do you do?" Hachey said. "You can't cry about it, because it's not going to get any better. You've just got to persevere."

 Hachey's had to shut off the power in her home and resorted to cooking on a wood burning stove while she waits to see if the water levels will continue to rise.

"We're trying to sandbag. I don't know what we're doing really or what we'll save," Hachey said.

All across the region, British Columbians are trying to save what they can as the water levels rise. More than 3,000 residents in the Boundary floodplain have been ordered to evacuate.

'A really bad dream'

In Grand Forks, the Kettle River spilled its banks sending water gushing into a nearby RV park that belongs to Monica Thate and her husband.

"Water is flowing freely through our house," Thate said. "It's like a really bad dream."

Her husband had built riverbank berms to protect against flooding and raised sections of their property by four feet but nothing is stopping the water.    

"We just didn't have a hope," she said. "There is no way we could have escape being flooded."

The RV park has been in the Thate family for 21 years.

"My husband, who is a big, strong burly guy ... he's not a crying sort of a person, but he told me he's cried so much this morning that he doesn't know if he could ever cry anymore," Thate said.  

Volunteers help

Volunteers in the area are all hands on deck trying to save homes and help those impacted by the floods.  

Gabriel Warriner, a pastor and school bus driver, built a device that makes filling sandbags easier after struggling to fill them fast enough during previous floods.

Volunteers have put out about 15,000 sandbags in the last few weeks.Warriner said he expects to at least double that number in the coming days.

"I've had calls from people saying don't bother coming to my location. The flood has already overtaken the bank," he said.

"For the ones that still have a chance, we're trying to mobilize as fast as we can and get bags out."

With files from Jaimie Kehler and Brady Strachan.