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With 10 to 15 more centimetres of water expected to fill the lake over the weekend, the Central Okanagan Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) held a quick press conference to make sure residents are doing everything they can to properly secure their properties.
The EOC stated that conditions are not yet suitable for boating, but it's certainly beneficial to still be sandbagging properties in low-lying areas.
While many residents have been at the sandbagging game for several weeks already, and are likely professional sandbaggers by now, the City still felt it necessary to go over proper techniques because of the amount of water expected to fill the lake over the next several days.
Staff with BC Wildfire gave a demo on what to do and what not to do when stacking sandbags.
"Don't stack them in a big wall. You need them staggered," said Todd Cashin, advanced planning for Emergency Centre Operations (EOC).
"Otherwise these just get hammered and tip over, or just get shredded by the lake," he said.
According to Cashin, many property owners are still stacking walls up single file to protect a retaining wall. With Tuesday night's wind, the waves continually pushed up against the sandbags and eventually all of the water went over the single file sandbag walls.
"You wanna build a triangle between the sand and gravel on the lake floor," said Cashin. "So this is where you're trying to protect that erosion and also at the same time hold the lake back to a certain extent. The water is still going to seep through - you're going to get pools seeping behind it,but it's stronger than just that one wall."
While many locals are wanting to get their boats in the water, the take-home message today was to hold off a little bit longer.
Not only is wave action an issue, but the large, floating debris is extremely hazardous to boaters at this time.
"It's full (Okanagan Lake), it's going to go up a little more so protect yourself," said Cashin. "Let's not create any waves on the lake."
Recreational trail users are also reminded to stay back from the creek banks and watch for unexpected rapid flow and level increases.
Residents and visitors are also reminded to properly extinguish any campfires and not carelessly dispose of cigarettes.
For information on sandbag locations, visit the CORD Emergency website.
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