Photo: File photo

Lumby officials hope there will not be a repeat of last year's flooding.

With a snowpack sitting at 123 per cent of normal, some people are wondering if the North Okanagan is going to have a repeat of the flooding that soaked the region last year.

Lumby Mayor Kevin Acton said this year, the town is ready.

Last year late snowfall in the mountains combined with unprecedented rainfall in April resulted in several areas of Lumby ending up under water.

But Acton said many of the measures put in place last year to combat the rising waters remain.

“Last year we put in quite a few berms and those are still in place and since then we've done some flood-plain mapping and the engineers are working on a plan for flood mitigation, but that won't be in place this spring, so we're hoping the works that were done last year that we might get away with just tidying things up as the water comes down,” he said.

Since the flooding last spring, Acton said the town has added lots of rip-rap, shored up the banks along waterways and has purchased a large piece of property that can be used as a floodplain.

“All around it there are high berms, so we are hoping that will be enough to keep the downtown core from flooding,” he said. “The work that we did last year kept the downtown from flooding and we were able to keep going with that work until the emergency was called off.

“Nothing has been removed and we are hoping to keep it as a permanent structure. I think we should be OK this year, but these extreme weather events can certainly make it a challenge.”