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Two First Nations communities in the Cowichan Valley are struggling to recover from a flood in early February that has displaced some residents indefinitely.

Dozens of people from the Cowichan Tribes and Halalt First Nation left their homes by boat as water filled their houses in the early hours of Feb. 1.

Halalt First Nation manager Caroline Gladstone said nearly all of the community’s 220 residents were displaced for a week after the flooding, staying temporarily in a hotel.

Forty-three people — including 12 children — are still there, unsure when they’ll be able to return home.

“People are traumatized — the ones that lost stuff,” she said. “[The kids are] missing their family and their friends in the community.”

At least one family in Cowichan Tribes is still unable to return home, said Chief William Seymour.

Both communities are located on flood plains, leaving them vulnerable to future flooding.

Gladstone said Halalt community members worry when they see rain now, thinking it might bring another evacuation.

Federal Minister of Indigenous Services Marc Miller met with the leadership of Cowichan Tribes and Halalt First Nation Tuesday to talk about recovery and flood mitigation.

Miller said it was important to meet with leaders of the communities face-to-face to hear their needs.

He acknowledged that Indigenous communities across the country tend to be more vulnerable to natural disasters, due to a historical lack of infrastructure funding that leaves leadership struggling to respond to and prevent emergencies.

“If you don’t have raised roads, if you don’t have dykes — or have dykes that are failing — clearly that presents a level of vulnerability that doesn’t exist in the same level in non-Indigenous communities,” he said.

“It’s the systematic effects of colonization.”

For Seymour, his first concern is acquiring funding for flood mitigation.

The community has already invested in protecting riverbanks in some areas, but Seymour said they struggle every year to get enough money to complete necessary dyke projects.

They also want funding to put in a pipe to join a municipal sewage system, which would prevent the health hazards caused in the February flood by septic systems backing up into homes.

“Because those septic fields have failed, our community members can’t use their bathrooms. If they use their bathrooms, everything backs into the house,” Seymour said, adding that Duncan’s sewer system stops at the edge of his community. “We’re looking at putting a pipe maybe two miles to connect to the municipal sewer. We’re not able to do it.”

Even as they look at preventing future floods, some of the damage from last month is yet to be assessed. The community’s Clem Clem longhouse, or Lhumlhumuluts’ in the Hul’qumi’num’ language, was filled with waist-deep water at the peak of the flood. There’s also concern about the septic tank leeching into the ceremonial building’s soil floor.

In the Halalt First Nation, their hatchery was destroyed, which will devastate returning Chinook stocks in the years to come, Gladstone said.

Both communities are looking to government for help to prevent future damage.

Miller said he understands the importance of investing in prevention.

“We can always do better.”

It was a combination of intense rain, melting snow pack and a high tide that led to the swollen Cowichan, Koksilah and Chemainus rivers spilling over their banks a month ago.

Seymour said he hadn’t seen flooding like it since he was a kid.

regan-elliott@timescolonist.com