Mill Cove family still dealing with aftermath of historic spring flood

The new year can't come soon enough for Kevin and Elaine Price.

The historic spring flood that battered parts of New Brunswick drove the couple from their Mill Cove home.

The family home sits about 30 metres away from water on Grand Lake. Until this year, the worst flooding the Price's experienced was in 2008 when 18 centimetres of water trickled inside the house.

"It was just unbelievable, never ever imagine it," said Kevin. "If we imagined it we would've had more stuff out, I guess."

Each spring since 2008, the Price's have prepared for potential flooding by lining their property with sandbags just in case.

This year was no different.

During the final days of April with the help of family and friends Kevin and Elaine stacked 2,500 sandbags around the home.

Butthose preparations weren't enough this year. The water crashed into the home, ruining the entire ground level.

Nothing could have prepared them from the onslaught of this year's flood, much like the rest of the province.

"Everything was either shoved over to the back door, the stairway, things had fallen over," Elaine said, describing the kitchen.

"All our appliances had fallen over and, we just lost it, like it was terrible, it was very devastating."

After months of living in limbo, the couple spent the Christmas holidays repairing their house. It isa project that will take at least another six months, they figure.

The holdup for the Price's was red tape.

After two denials from their insurance company, they had to wait for to see if government would come through with financial assistance.

The Price's appealed the first assessment from the provinceand eagerly waited to see what would happen after that.

The wait was stressful on the family, Kevin said.

"I knew it was going to be a long process to get it going. But the biggest part,the stressful part, was waiting for insurance or EMO to come through or whatever."

After months of waiting they got some good news. The family received a cheque from the government that will cover most of the $160,000 renovation.

"We were very happy because we're trying to retire someday, we don't want to have to remortgage our home," Elaine said.

After a six-month wait, and a handful of moves, the Price's could start the repairs.

A Christmas gift wrapped in concrete

Days before the Christmas holidays, the first of the major renovations started, which was to raise the house two metres in preparation for a possible future flood.

"We knew that Mother Nature was not good to us, so we thought we better prepare in case it happens again and, hopefully, we're up high enough," Elaine said.

The Prices hope to be back in their home by May, a date that's not lost on them.

If history repeats, Kevin and Elaine are fully aware that when they move back into their home, they could be in the middle of another spring flood.

Elaine finds it difficult to imagine going through that again.

"We're just very, very grateful that we're able to be raised up and, hopefully, that will help our healing process."

Kevin is more confident than his wife.

"Hopefully, we did the right thing. I'm pretty sure we did and, hopefully, we'll be OK. Springtime will tell, but I think we're good."