It’s been more than five months since Andrea and Florian Lemphers have been able to live in their house on Shallow Bay.

The Lemphers were ordered to leave their home during July’s flooding event.

They’re planning to return early Wednesday afternoon.

The water on Lake Laberge rose seven feet (two metres) from late May to mid-July.

If not for the assistance of family and the many friends and volunteers who helped place sandbags around the house, the loss would have been devastating, Florian said in an interview last week.

He says the wall of sandbags prevented water from getting to the main floor.

Rising ground water did flood the crawl space, but the main floor is fine, he says.

A construction crew has made the necessary repairs to the crawl space – replaced the insulation, vapour barrier....

The crew has also been retained to move back in everything that was removed just in case the flooding did get into the house, including a 120-year-old dining room table.

Everything was stored in a storage container, or with family members.

The move back began late last week, and the Lemphers are scheduled to move back in at noon Wednesday.

“We have not lived in the house for 21 weeks – five months and a week,” says Lemphers. “We have been out of the house since July 13.”

Lemphers says they’ve been living in nearby friend’s garage for the past five months. The garage had already been converted into a suite with a bedroom and a shower.

Their longtime friend and neighbour, Corey Sheffield, has been very accommodating, he says.

Lemphers says their home is insured for flooding, but it still took time to get the work done.

Some of the supplies, like the special spray foam for the crawl space, came up from B.C. and was delayed because of last month’s highways washouts.

Lemphers says the lake level did not start dropping until the end of September or early October, which is really rare. Normally, he says, the water goes down in late August or early September.

But their front fence still had three feet of water around it at the end of September.

“It’s a big relief,” Lemphers says of the ability to move back into the home.

“It’s the longest we have been away from the place since we moved there 38 years ago.”

The Lemphers purchased a cabin that was already there and eventually added onto it.

In their 38 years at Shallow Bay, the Lemphers have not had any issues of flooding, says Lemphers. He says not even during the 2007 flood did water reach the house.

Lemphers says in anticipation of the past summer’s flood, he outfitted their home with five cameras placed strategically so they could monitor the situation remotely on their cellphone.

When Lemphers left the home in July for the last time, he was wearing hip waders, and the water was halfway up his thigh. He was pulling a canoe with their little dog inside while the big dog walked beside them.

“It’s going to be good to get moved back in,” he says. “It’s been a long haul and we would not have made it without those people who showed up in July to help us.

“It’s tough going, and there has been a lot of stress,” says Lemphers.

“It’s hard work, and I am not getting any younger. People normally do not do this when they are 70. I’m a young 70.”

He says they have had some glitches, “but we are going to be in there before Christmas – for sure.”

In an online post, the Lempers note they are faced with either moving their house or moving the water away from their house.

The Lemphers are planning to install a solar-powered ground water dewatering system next year that will move ground water away from the house to their top fields near the Shallow Bay Road.

They’re also planning to build a permanent berm around the house.