‘I built it as a dream house’: Sumas Prairie farmers still struggling to comprehend loss
Posted December 1, 2021 10:38 pm.
Last Updated December 2, 2021 8:37 am.
Satpal Sangha built his dream home on a blueberry farm in Abbotsford’s Sumas Prairie, with plans to retire there one day with his wife. It’s been two weeks since catastrophic flooding forced them to flee, and the uncertainty about when — or even if — he can go back and rebuild is weighing heavily on him.
“I always wanted to build a house on a farm, a nice quiet place. I built it in 2013 as a dream house,” he says.
“I feel so bad. I can’t sleep very much at night time to tell you the truth. It’s really tough for me. I have no idea how much the damage is.”
RELATED: Abbotsford farmers devastated by destruction of homes, crops in flooding
On Wednesday, he took CityNews as close as he could get to his property, navigating washed-out roads, keeping to a careful crawl, dodging tires, debris, and cattle carcasses.
Sangha runs a gravel truck company in addition to growing berries, but water is flooding his hundreds of thousands of dollars in heavy equipment and his farmland.
He hasn’t been able to get in, but he has a sense of what awaits him after one of his cousins was able to get closer to the home and shoot some video through a second-storey window.
“I know the main floor is totally done — all the drywall, all the insulation, electricity, all that. My fridges are floating. The water is over the counter in the kitchen. ” he says, adding it’s frustrating that the rain just keeps on coming.
“I want to go to my house soon as I can. After 15, 16 days — we are still in the same place.”
While there is government support available, like a $2,000 payment for evacuees and Disaster Financial Assistance for eligible homeowners — Sangha says all he wants is to know if he’ll ever be able to go home again.
“I need the government to do something for our house, to care about our house.”
Jaswant Singh Dhillon is another farmer whose home has been destroyed. Like Sangha, he is desperately trying to figure out if anything can be saved.
“You have a brand new house, everything is okay. Then after a few days, you have nothing, right?” he says. “Maybe [I’ll] tear down my house, I’m not sure. All my ID is there, my passport, and all documents — everything is underwater now.”
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He and his wife are staying with family, since they found it impossible to find anywhere to rent. The support available, he says, is not nearly enough.
“They gave us the one coupon to go and get groceries from Superstore right. And we took that, we applied to the Red Cross and they gave us $2,000. But $2,000 is nothing right?” he says.
“I’m not happy with the government.”
Abbotsford’s Mayor Henry Braun said Wednesday he is hopeful those evacuated from Sumas Prairie will soon be able to return as water levels stabilize. But homeowners and farmers like Sangha and Dhillon will still be wading through floodwater and the wreckage created in its wake.
“There will be some amount of water there for weeks — and we don’t know what’s under it.”
