Less than three months left to apply for flood assistance

CENTRAL OKANAGAN – Residents who have been impacted by the flooding of Okanagan Lake now have less than 90 days to apply for assistance from the province.

Emergency Management B.C. declared July 29 as the official end of flooding of Okanagan Lake, giving residents until October 27 to fill out a Disaster Financial Assistance form available on the organizations website.

According to a media release from Emergency Management B.C. major flooding and debris flows have caused property damage across the Central and Southeast Regions.

Financial Assistance has been authorized for ‘qualifying claimants,’ such as home owners, residential tenants, small business owners, farmers, charitable organizations and local government bodies, who were unable to obtain insurance to cover these disaster-related losses.   

It has been authorized for regional districts in the Thompson-Nicola, the North Okanagan, Columbia Shuswap, Okanagan-Similkameen, Central Okanagan, District of Kootenay Boundary, East Kootenay and Central Kootenay. 

This includes all electoral areas, municipalities and first nation communities within the geographic boundaries of these regional districts.

“Applicants should first check with their insurance agent to determine if their current insurance policy provides coverage for the resulting damage,” the release says. “As part of the DFA qualification process, the applicant’s insurer will be asked to provide a letter indicating that the applicant could not have purchased insurance to cover these disaster-related losses.   “

Completed applications can be emailed to DFA@gov.bc.ca or faxed to 250-952-5542. 

As applications are received in this office, EMBC contracted evaluators will contact the applicants to explain the DFA program requirements and schedule an onsite visit.  

If you have questions call (250) 952-5525.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Adam Proskiw or call 250-718-0428 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.