The Municipality of West-Interlake's finally seeing progress on their Disaster Financial Assistance Claims. They've been battling for compensation for work completed during the 2011 and 2014 floods for quite some time, and even had their deadline by the province extended late last year. It's created financial challenges for the municipality, which Reeve Randy Helgason previously said was likely one of the reasons for concerns voic ed by the West-Interlake Citizens Group, who are calling for the municipality to be dissolved. 

Reeve Randy Helgason

Helgason says the province has finally paid out a large sum for a majority of those claims. He notes the municipality has received $1.5 million from the province related to the 2011 flood, and while he's pleased to see progress, there are still some concerns.

"That was more than our budget in 2011. It's a long process. We've recovered funds, but maybe the process is a little bit flawed. If you submit it, and you do get paid, you think there'd be a better time frame."

He says there are still a few DFA claims remaining, and they're hoping the remainder of their applications are approved, and compensated, in a timely manner.

"We were still working on some 2011 damages and things that were flood related when we were hit by the 2014 flood, so those were kind of put on hold. There are still a few items outstanding, but now we're going to submit them with the 2014 submissions, but there's not a whole lot left. Hopefully we can get everything cleaned up, out of the way, and come to some sort of finality with DFA."

While the amount of time it has taken them to receive compensation is one concern for Helgason, there are also questions surrounding how the applications are approved. He says rather than visiting long after the devastation has been cleaned up, DFA representatives should be seeing disaster areas during the height of the problems.

"The thing that kind of bothers me is that the DFA people, to my knowledge, never really came during the height of the lake flood, or the overland flooding to actually witness the devastation. I think it's hard for people to imagine just what the devastation was, if you don't see it first hand."

He feels the next round of claims they're submitting should be approved without any challenges, but notes they're more than willing to appeal any decision not in their favour.