Alberta flood victim told house age to blame for damage

A former Bowness resident is upset with the way her application for disaster relief has beenhandled.

Her home was a write-off following the 2013 flood but the province has told her she is not eligible for funding to restore the property.

• IN-DEPTH COVERAGE |Alberta Flood 2013

All that remains of Natalie Sawyer's home on Bowwater Crescent is a pile of rubble being loaded in a truck destined for the dump. It was finally torn down on Monday.

Stewart says the house was about 90 years old, but there were no concerns about its structural integrity until the floodwaters hit.

"The whole basement was in water and I had about three feet of water running through the main level of my house. Everything in the house was destroyed," she said.

The engineering firm she hired determined that the house had shifted an inch-and-a-half off of its foundation, she says.

But assessors for the provincial Disaster Relief Program (DRP) concluded that was pre-existing damage.

"They were saying my house was so old that all of the damage was because of the age of the house and not because of the flood," she said.

Sawyer has been told she is eligible for a small amount of compensation but not nearly enough to replace what she says was a "good house" with "good energy."

A spokesperson for the disaster relief program says they won't discuss individual cases.