Here's what Sussex will build next in its fight to keep floodwaters out

If you stand in the trees and brush between Trout Creek and Kurtis Carter and Kassandra Chudiak's home in Sussex, you can hear water rushing by.

Once a selling point for the couple, who moved into their Meadow Crescent house from Ontario three years ago, proximity to the creek is now the reason Carter has bought a backup property in another part of New Brunswick.  

"I really hope this helps," he said of the town's latest flood-control projects. "But at the same time, I still need to have a contingency."

Years after creating a final flood risk mitigation plan, the Town of Sussex recently got the green light from the federal government to begin building multimillion-dollar channels and another berm to divert water around the downtown into the Kennebecasis River.

Like other residents and business owners in town, Carter and Chudiak have had to become experts in dealing with floods in their basement, sometimes as high as four feet, or about 1.2 metres.

And while they're hopeful about the next big steps in the town's flood plan, the couple are still waiting to see how those plans will hold up against water levels that rise almost yearly.

"I think it's long overdue," Carter said.

"I think that they're doing what they think is best. Mother nature is going to do what she wants, and we're just kind of along for the ride."

In Carter's backyard are bits of orange tape tied to trees. He believes these represent where a mounting berm is going to be built to contain water from the creek, which swells in heavy rain.

It's first of three major infrastructure projects the town believes will be difference-makers for protecting Sussex from future flooding disasters.In 2019, the municipality built a berm behind the Gateway Mall downtown.

It's a large barrier made of dirt and natural elements. Placed along riverbeds and creeks, it can contain overflow that would otherwise spill onto roads and other areas where it isn't wanted, said Jason Thorne, the chief administrative officer.

It's "basically where the Kennebecasis River rejoins Trout Creek to the western end of town," he said of the first berm. "[It] has proven extremely valuable and a critical first step."

A second berm will be built this summer, Thorne said, along the section of Trout Creek that backs Carter and his partner's community, and it will extend toward Sussex Corner Elementary School.

According to the master plan, the berm will have an average height of 2.3 metres, and span more than 700 metres, with a trail built along the top of it.