Good Samaritans bring cleanup efforts to flooded communities

A Christian relief organization that has been helping Parkland homeowners recover from flooding for nearly a month is shifting its work to Swan River and has vowed to stay until every job is finished.

Program manager Andy Northup said Samaritan’s Purse Canada had received about 85 work orders in Swan River as of Thursday, with the number expected to rise.

“We always say it this way: we never leave without completing all our work orders,” Northup said from the Swan River area. “We’ll just keep taking them until they dry up and stop coming in.”

He estimated it will be at least a month until the last job is finished, given the scale of the destruction in the western Manitoba town.

Officials estimated 150 to 200 homes were damaged when the Swan River burst its banks after heavy rains June 30. Flooding was widespread in the region for the second time in less than a month.

“I’m amazed and so thankful somebody didn’t lose their lives in this. It’s a massive flood,” said Northup, who has responded to disasters across Canada and around the world. “Homeowners have gone through a lot and are going through a lot. It’s pretty devastating for folks.”

Samaritan’s Purse and other groups, including Christian Disaster Relief and Christian Aid Ministries, began helping residents after initial flooding in the first week of June. The primary focus was Minitonas, about 15 kilometres east of Swan River.

Samaritan’s Purse received almost 150 work orders in Minitonas and a few in Swan River. About 32 remained in Minitonas, where the organization set up a camp in a church yard.

Northup said the non-profit will complete those jobs and early next week will likely start helping Swan River homeowners affected by the latest flood.

“If you’ve had a flooded basement that’s a finished basement, that means everything has to come out — carpets and furniture, washer and dryer, drywall, insulation,” Northup said.

“We get into a state that we call rebuild-ready, so that means it’s all cleaned up, and cleaned out. Screws are taken out, nails are taken out, and then we spray (a disinfectant cleaner) that inhibits mould from growing.”

Northup said quite a few of the flooded houses in Swan River had full basements and water up to the main level.

“Depending on how much water is in the basement equates to how much work you’ve got to do,” he said.

Samaritan’s Purse delivered a disaster relief unit to the town Wednesday night to set up a post. About 70 volunteers have helped in Parkland, mostly for one week at a time. They include retired volunteers and counsellors from a summer camp.

Northup said 29 volunteers were in the region Thursday.

“You come into these communities and you see how resilient and caring people are for their neighbours and for our team,” he said. “It’s a sad way to visit a community, but the care of one another in the community is what I’m seeing.”

Northup said Samaritan’s Purse will seek day volunteers in Swan River.

“The reality is anybody can volunteer because there’s a place for everybody,” he said. “We’ve never seen a volunteer show up that is not vital to work in the field for the homeowners.”

The federal government sent a small team of Canadian Armed Forces members to Parkland on Saturday, after the Manitoba government requested help. A team of volunteers from veteran-led Team Rubicon Canada is expected to arrive this weekend to begin helping homeowners with basement cleaning and debris removal.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca