A steady stream of volunteers has been coming to the aid of residents in Sechelt’s Seawatch neighbourhood this week as they prepared for an evacuation order that was expected to go into force at 1 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 15.
An email to residents, signed by Mayor Darnelda Siegers, said security fencing would be in place by Friday and “the fencing gates will be locked at 1 p.m. Friday. Keys will be provided to the RCMP and fire department. We are also making arrangements for regular drone patrol of the neighbourhood.”
On Wednesday, dozens of people with trucks, trailers, quads and muscle to lend were helping the residents move their belongings. The barricades that were completely blocking access via Gale Avenue North and Crowston Road had been moved aside.
Shelley Ruben was among the volunteers and arranged donations of food and drink from local merchants. “Our community needs to embrace these people,” Ruben said.
Sechelt Coun. Eric Scott was also lending a hand.
The people living in the 14 still-occupied homes in Seawatch were put on evacuation alert Feb. 7, following a report from Thurber Engineering that concluded “the probability of sinkhole collapse is evidently high and is anticipated to increase with time” and that “the high hazard of sinkhole collapse in combination with the consequences of potential injury or death result in a high, and in our opinion, unacceptable level of risk to the public.”
The engineering firm recommended a “proactive closure” of the subdivision.
Mayor Siegers said the district was holding off on the evacuation order as long as possible on “compassionate grounds.”
But delaying the order came with conditions. Residents were told they must ensure minors were “evacuated immediately” and that “any adult residents who choose to spend time in their homes acknowledge that they have been advised of the risk of doing so, and are doing so at their own risk.”
Vehicle access to the subdivision was still cut off last weekend, as residents worked to move their belongings hundreds of metres to where they were able to park. That was when the first wave of volunteers showed up.
Seawatch homeowner Elliott Held said Monday that he and his neighbours have been overwhelmed by the community response, including a number of people who went to Seawatch with offers of help.
“It’s just been unbelievable how generous people are with their time, with food, with coffee. Just incredible,” Held said.
Held said he feels very safe in their house and his family plans to stay as long as they can, even after an evacuation order comes down. He said as dog owners they’re finding it hard to get a temporary rental place. “And, what there is for rent, we can’t afford – so we’re still looking,” he said.
At the end of the road, Kevin Pickell spent some of Monday shuttling small loads out to the barricades using a lawn tractor.
Pickell said residents had hoped the district would give them one more weekend. “That gives us two extra days of other community members being able to come here [to help].”
Rod Goy also said Seawatch residents were grateful for the response of community members. “[Last] Saturday I met so many people who were just wandering around asking what they could do,” Goy said. “People bringing huge jugs of coffee, people helping some of the older folks or people who couldn’t get out. The community rallying behind us has been incredible and something we’ll never forget.”
There have also been offers of places to stay in the short term and places to store belongings.
Goy said they’re less impressed with what they see as a lack of help from the district.
“There are certain things they can do that’s within their power,” he said. “There should have been an army of people here. There should have been RCMP or somebody to handle the traffic, move some of those barriers and let us get our stuff, get a road plowed so people aren’t walking up at the risk of falling and breaking their neck. The list goes on and on.”
Donna Goy said the couple will be staying for a while with their son, but others were still not sure what they’d do when a full evacuation order is issued.
“Families are being split apart... It’s cruel, because it was all preventable,” she said.
Rod Goy said the focus for many of the residents this week has been on the immediate concerns of managing an evacuation, but calls for someone to be held accountable continue.
Two property owners have lawsuits pending that are due to be heard in B.C. Supreme Court in 2020, and another Seawatch resident launched a petition last month calling for the provincial government to hold a public inquiry into how the development could ever have been allowed to proceed in the first place.
As of Wednesday afternoon it had more than 1,400 signatures.
Thurber Engineering also claimed in its most recent report that its recommendations for managing the sinkhole risk were not implemented by the district. At one point it was estimated those measures would cost around $10 million.
“If you look at every one of the reports you’ll see that there were recommendations for things to be done, and in every case they indicated that they could not guarantee that those [measures] would actually fix the site,” Siegers told Coast Reporter Feb. 8.
“That and the cost of putting these in with no certainty around the site was probably something that led into those decisions. I can’t say what was on the mind of all the councillors over the years who’ve dealt with this site.”
The district told Seawatch residents that Emergency Social Services volunteers would be on hand from noon to 3 p.m. Feb. 15 at the Visitor Information Centre office at the Seaside Centre.
