Kleefeld, Man. woman homeless after ‘heartbreaking’ downpour floods community

Khristy Butler’s Tuesday started like any other, but certainly didn’t end that way.

When it wrapped up, her home of six and a half years in Kleefeld, Man., was no longer livable due to a rainstorm that wiped out her entire basement, about eight inches of rainfall filling it with six feet of water.

“It looks like a tornado came through. Everything was literally floating up here. When I looked down, even my freezer was floating,” she said.

She also said she lost a great deal of cherished belongings.

“I’ve lost all my pictures, wedding pictures, and things like that,” she said. “It’s just a horror scene in here.”

But what her heart aches for the most is not the things that have been destroyed, but what they keep alive.

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“I don’t care about stuff. You know, it’s not the stuff. It’s the memories that you lose. That’s what’s heartbreaking,” she said

The aftermath now lingers in the smell of soaked carpets, saturated and deteriorating drywall, and of course the sight of the wreckage.

“A tornado came through. That’s what it looks like. Looks like a tsunami or whatever it is. Sometimes I make light jokes about it, but that’s how I survive,” Butler said, adding that the flood has left behind about $100,000 worth of damage.

But her insurance only covers $10,000.

“Insurance covers maybe three things. My hot water tank, my furnace, and my electrical panel. That’s all that’s going to cover. So I don’t know what else to do,” she said, explaining she has to contact a list of experts to make sure her home can be repaired, and how to do that.

“I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted emotionally, I’m exhausted physically, I’m mentally exhausted. You know, I’m on the phone all the time communicating with so many people, trying to make heads or tails out of this. We’re like, where do we go?”

Now, Butler said her home of six and a half years is unlivable until its repairs are completed.

“I’m homeless. Thankfully I have my daughter lives around the corner and that’s where I’ve been staying,” she said, also grateful for the help she has been receiving from her community.

“I’ve had so many offers for help. To help me clean this up. That’s what I want to do — I want to help others as well,” Butler said. After all, she said is not the only one to be living out the nightmare.

“I have a neighbour up the street. You know, he took in two feet of water,” she said, noting several others.

She believes the mess could have been prevented after sending multiple emails to the Rural Municipality (RM) of Hanover about the draining system.

Jim Funk, the RM’s reeve, says there’s not much that could’ve been done — and that the RM follows common draining regulations.

“When we have this amount of rain. According to engineering, we you know, it’s almost impossible to build accordingly,” he said. “When we do development and the engineering look at this, we look at… how the weather has been in 25 years and the rains. So that is where they kind of gauge the retention patterns.”

Environment and Climate Change Canada says this kind of rainfall has a one per cent chance — or less — of happening in a given year.

But since it’s happened, the province says it’s working with several communities needing help, and has received seven requests for disaster financial assistance.

Butler says all that’s left to do is push through.

“I just have to think positive and know that things are going to work out OK.”

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