Nolalu resident Brian Hay remembers last spring's flooding so well that on Tuesday morning he was afraid to look in his basement.
Hay leaned over his deck on the morning after 123 millimetres of rain drove flash floods through the Whitefish River system, looking nervously at his well as the rushing river brushed against it.
To avoid a repeat of last year he dumped five loads of fill in his front yard but said the province wouldn't allow him to fill in the slimming gap between his back door and the fast-flowing water that washed away his belongings in the night.
"The river yesterday, it's usually just a little creek but yesterday it was up to the top of the dock, here," he said.
"It took everything. There's chairs over there and our garbage cans are gone. I imagine they're down the creek somewhere."
Among the crews attempting to make roads passable, many residents were out venturing as far from home as the shredded roads would allow.
One man, who wasn’t comfortable giving his name, abandoned his truck to walk down the last hill before his washed-out, dirt road reached the highway.
He found the Ministry of Transportation vehicle parked at the juncture was empty when he reached the bottom.
As he surveyed the damage from Monday's flood and weighed it against the fact that he was out of milk, he wondered aloud whether his truck might be able to make it through.
That was the question throughout the community.
Down the highway resident Richard Bruhm mounted his four-wheeler ATV to run a message to ministry officials from gravel contractors who weren't sure where to dump first.
"She's washed out good," Bruhm said, relieved hydro workers were able to navigate his road and expected his power might be turned back on by the end of the day.
"I moved to Thunder Bay in '78. I've never seen anything like this. This is really weird."
