Municipal and Community Affairs Minister Shane Thompson says flood-affected residents in Fort Simpson and Jean Marie River will get replacement homes delivered to them in the early part of 2022.
Fort Simpson and Jean-Marie River were impacted particularly hard by the floods this summer, as the territory saw record-high water levels.
Thompson says his team has been on-the-ground working with flood-affected residents for months now and needs more time to deliver on customizations that meet the long-term needs of residents.
“Residents were offered options and they have agreed that this is the way forward. For our part, we will keep roofs over their heads until those homes are delivered and installed, and we will work to get them the support they need,” he adds.
Thompson says the workhouses that only needed repairs, in Fort Simpson and Jean Marie River, are on-track to be finished in November – and in many cases the repairs will be completed even sooner than that.
In Fort Simpson, the estimate is that 70 private homes were damaged and that 60 require repair and 10 require replacement, while in Jean-Marie River, 16 to 18 homes need repairs.
Thompson says recovering from this disaster was never going to be easy.
“Our territory offers challenges that just don’t exist elsewhere. And with any construction project, come challenges that need to be managed and often this means shifting timelines,” he adds.
Thompson says repairs in Fort Good Hope, which was also heavily impacted by this year’s flooding, have been delayed due to the community’s need to respond to the recent COVID-19 outbreak.
However, he remains confident that repairs in the community will be done in November.
