Poppy Degeorgio of Arnott Place looks for videos she took of Wednesday's rain and flooding of her property.

(SHANNON QUESNEL / iNFOnews.ca)

PENTICTON - Poppy Degeorgio had some of her deceased husband's items destroyed in Wednesday's flooding of Arnott Place.

Her spouse died in a car accident seven years ago. Degeorgio decided to hang on to some of his things. "I had a lot of his stuff I wanted to give to my children." A few irreplaceable items were lost when the rain poured water into her garage and storage area at her home on Arnott Place.

She was going through her soaked belongings on Thursday. A large fan was being used in the back room to keep it dry. Several residents on Wilson Street and Arnott Place were doing the same - going over what the water damaged and cleaning up.

Wednesday's sudden downpour had different effects on people's properties. One homeowner on Wilson Street with a dipped driveway had major ground floor flooding. Two vans belonging to a flood restoration company were seen parked out front. Another homeowner had water come over the sidewalk and onto the front lawn. A few had water surround their homes and flood their backyards.

City public works manager Len Robson said Penticton is a desert climate and its storm system was never designed for the volume of rain seen on Wednesday.

Degeorgio said she has seen severe rain before but never like this. "I've never had anything that came down in my driveway. This year it came right in." At first everything seemed OK when the rain started. She was watching the water race down the road. Then it came over the sidewalk and down into her below-level garage.

She was not worried at first. But then in five minutes "I put the iPad down and said oh my God. I started panicking." Neighbours brought buckets. One brought a sump pump. Another had a large broom to brush the water away and keep it from going into her home. For the most part they succeeded.

Irene Dias was examining her home on Wilson Street, just a few houses down from Degeorgio. She said there's rain like this every year and this was the worst she'd seen it. "I've had one that came up to the garage door," she said, but that's it.

"It's the first time it flooded the backyard," she said. Her husband told her there was a sump pump in the back shed. "So I opened the shed and that's the first time I ever saw water in there."

Degeorgio and Dias said they won't be calling their insurance company over this as the damage in dollar-value was minor.

To contact a reporter for this story, to send photos or videos, email Shannon Quesnel at squesnel@infotelnews.ca, call 250-488-3065 or tweet @shannonquesnel1

City public works manager Len Robson said Penticton is a desert climate. The city's storm systems, like this storm grate on Wilson Street, were not built to handle the water seen on Wednesday.

(SHANNON QUESNEL / iNFOnews.ca)

News from © iNFOnews, 2013