As snowdrifts rise and temperatures fall, the memory of an unprecedented rainstorm in the city on a hot July day might seem like a lifetime ago.
It's not that way for everyone.
"For the majority of people in Yorkton, the flood is over. It's out of people's minds," says Michael Pasloski, Yorkton & area community outreach coordinator for the Red Cross. "But there is a core population base that is living with this daily."
Today, the Red Cross, which has already assisted more than 200 people in the city in connection to the July 1 flood, is still providing aid on a steady basis. In a single week in late November, the organization took on eight new clients. Volunteers have been deployed regularly from elsewhere in Canada to handle the workload.
The emergency response is long over, but the type of aid being provided by the Red Cross has not changed significantly. Some clients need a few days of shelter while their homes are repaired. Others need a few dollars for clothes or groceries. Some are low-income residents, while others earn a good salary but are saddled with the cost of alternative accommodations while they continue to pay the mortgage on their ruined homes.
According to Jason Farrell of Farrell Agencies, about 3,000 insurance claims totaling more than $30,000,000 have arisen out of the Yorkton flood. Approximately 75 percent of these have now been paid. The Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) has paid an additional $3.1 million to flood victims in the city and closed 44 out of 76 applications by residents displaced from their homes.
Meanwhile, about 25 people whose homes remain unlivable are still staying in rooms at SIGN on Broadway, having found no suitable alternatives.
"That's where we're primarily focusing our services," says Richard Sevigny, SIGN's executive director. "Sometimes we do have walk-ins from travelers coming through, and we'll help them if we have rooms available, but our priority is for people in need of temporary emergency housing."
Sharon Coleman is one of these. She is among five individuals who have been living at SIGN ever since July 1.
Coleman's house is on Agricultural Avenue, one of the hardest-hit blocks in Yorkton. She was downtown on the day of the storm and heard rumors of severe flooding in parts of the city.
With the rain still coming down, Coleman headed home to find the water level on her street rising at a rate of a foot per minute. She entered the house hoping to rescue her pets, but her cats were panicked and in hiding. Both were later found drowned.
Coleman abandoned the house while the water level outside was waist-high and still rising.
"I had the dog and my purse," she recalls. "I even lost one of my shoes, so I was running around with no shoes."
A police officer spotted her and directed her to the Red Cross, who supplied her with some basic essentials and found her a room at SIGN.
That temporary emergency shelter has now been her home for nearly half a year, and Coleman is one of several residents with a growing sense of frustration over her situation - most of it directed at her insurance company and the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP).
Coleman's house is considered repairable; although water filled the basement and reached the mattresses in the main-floor bedroom, the foundation is thought to be sound. The repair costs fall under PDAP's mandate, but no final approvals have been given, and few contractors are likely to accept the job over winter.
Coleman says her situation makes it difficult to find another place to live.
Before the flood, she ran a dog grooming business out of her own basement. Renting retail space for the same purpose would cost nearly as much as she could hope to make in a month, which leaves her earning meager dollars making house calls.
That's not the only obstacle.
"[PDAP] is already saying, 'Oh, find yourself an apartment.' Well, what good is that going to do? I have no furniture. They haven't sent any money for the furniture."
PDAP pays for Coleman's stay at SIGN, but she has received no money beyond a $3,000 advance payment - nor even an estimate on how much she can expect to receive. Her insurance company, for its part, has paid about $10,000 for replacement of her basement appliances, but Coleman says she must forfeit the cash if it's not spent by December 28. The house where the appliances are to be installed, of course, is still a wreck.
"You would have to see these places in order to believe it," says Coleman. "You have no idea how disastrous they look. I mean, the ground still stinks from the sewer, and they want people to move back there."
Expenses are piling up in the meantime. Coleman says a contractor stripped down the interior of her house without consulting her, apparently under the direction of PDAP. PDAP later claimed to have no knowledge of the work, and Coleman was left with an $8,000 bill and a lien on the house.
Mieka Torgrimson, acting director of the Saskatchewan Emergency Management Organization which is responsible for PDAP, encourages people with such concerns to contact the program directly.
"We won't see the urgency of certain claims just on paper," she admits.
But Coleman has already phoned dozens of times.
"No one has any idea what's going on down there," she says. "You never get the same line twice."
Coleman's home has also been broken into by vandals, prompting the city to request it be boarded up as a public hazard: another expense Coleman thinks should be covered by PDAP, but which she hasn't been able to get a commitment on. Even payments the department has said are on the way have failed to materialize.
Don Morash, another five-month resident of SIGN whose house was on Brodie Avenue, tells a similar story. Morash's basement caved in after the flood, making his home a total write-off. But he says that progress with PDAP has been stalled since the summer.
"Everything is in limbo. Everything is on hold."
Torgrimson acknowledges that some Saskatchewan residents have been waiting a long time to have their applications processed.
"It's important to note that we have over 4,500 claims across the province, and some were affected well before July 1," she says. "It's a matter of when we get the adjustor reports, and then they're put into queue."
PDAP offers disaster assistance of up to $240,000 for residences, but Morash says the actual assessments he has been given are laughably low. An estimate for the teardown and replacement of much of his home's interior totaled just over $1,200.
"That might cover the doors on the kitchen cupboards," he remarks.
Like Coleman, Morash says he has found it impossible to get straight answers from PDAP regarding its policies or the cause of the delays.
"They change the rules to suit their needs. They're definitely not being fair."
At this point, both Morash and Coleman say they would be happy to accept a buyout of their homes from the government if the offer was fair: something between the actual post-disaster value and the insured value.
"If they're willing to pay a contractor $85,000 to fix the place, why can't they give it to me?" asks Coleman. "I would sell the property, I'd have my money back, and I would be gone."
That's not an option under the current program, notes Torgrimson, but the director again encourages people who believe they have "extenuating circumstances" to contact PDAP and explain their situation.
For the time being, Morash is reluctant to complain too loudly. He recently received a sign of hope: word that the government may soon be buying up the damaged homes through a local realtor for a "better than fair" price. However, no timetable was given and residents like Coleman have heard nothing about such a plan.
"I want to get on with my life," Coleman says.
The two flood victims have only good things to say about charitable organizations such as the Salvation Army, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, and in particular the Red Cross.
"It's probably one of the best organizations in the entire world, in my opinion," notes Coleman.
The Red Cross's Michael Pasloski expects that the consequences of the July 1 flood have yet to be fully realized. He worries that the spring thaw will reveal more structural issues in water-damaged residences, forcing more people out of their homes.
If the need should arise, Pasloski says the Red Cross plans to be in place to meet it.
"This is a long-term project. We're going to be here a long time."
