'We have it under control'

Crews have a hold on the flooding situation on Kirschner Mountain for the time being and are hoping a large rainfall will hold off on Thursday.

Residents Donna Greer and Karen Bernath found water seeping into their basement and running into their backyard from the top of Kischner Mountain last Thursday.

Since then, landowner Al Kirschner and the City of Kelowna have deployed teams to assist the homeowners and also tried to get melting snow off the top of the mountain.

“We have it under control, we are pumping water out of here, hauling water out of here, we are getting water out of here every which way we can right at the present time”

Kirschner said his employees have been putting in long days since they were notified about the flooding on Sunday night.

“I was a little surprised, I didn’t think we would have that much of a problem but we got an awful lot of snow, we’ve never had a problem with it but it is a late year and we got more snow than normal.”

Residents said they are hopeful the work crews will be successful in holding off rain expected Thursday, but admit they are nervous.

“When a ground gets saturated you run the risk of mudslides and that hill coming down against the back of our house doesn’t really stand a chance,” said Bernath.

Kirschner said confidently the mountain is not going anywhere.

“The mountain isn’t going to slide away, we know that,” he said. “It’s all been structurally engineered, it’s broken bed rock and some of it is glacial till.

“It is not going anywhere.”

Crews were working late Wednesday draining water through the yard of homes and onto Verde Vista Road.

The City of Kelowna says there are no storm sewers nearby.

“If we don’t get much rain tomorrow we will be just fine,” said Kirschner. “It is the big rain the boys are worried about right now.”

He added they will keeping doing what they are doing and are hopeful they can stop more water running into homes.