Lumby Borrows To Pay Flood Bills

The Village of Lumby has approved a borrowing bill to help get started paying what it shelled out to deal with flooding in May.

Kevin Acton says it’s routine while waiting for grant money from the provincial government.

“But we want to pay the contractors. We’re able to pay the contractors for the work they’ve done now and then replace the money with the grant money when it comes in from the province.”

Acton says there are still some invoices coming in.

The money would be coming from Emergency Management British Columbia.

“They’re still sorting through the invoices. I mean it’s not just our community but they’ve got probably thousands of invoices to deal with. so they’re going to be awhile before they’re paying us.”

There’s no dollar figure on what needs to be borrowed and what is borrowed will be paid back once the EMBC money comes in.

Meanwhile, work continues.

“We’re working on getting some stuff patched up. Still dealing with getting the final funding, but we’re getting most of the people back in their homes and working on that stuff right now and then we’ll start focusing on individual properties.”

While the flood threat has decreased some higher stream flows are expected, so the village is being vigilant in maintaining protection.