FOG BLOG RIDICULOG: HUGHES FAMILY RISK LOSING HOME TO EROSION FROM FLOODING:

Pictures of a Keswick couple's property, taken just a few years ago, show a vibrant backyard and a nice one-car garage.

Today, the backyard and garage are gone, lost to the Keswick River west of Fredericton. Record floods in recent years have led to rapid erosion of the riverbank behind Bruce Hughes's house.

"In the 2018 and 2019 floods, we were losing 20 feet at a time," he said.

The floods wiped out trees along the riverbank, and now there's nothing left to keep the waters from chewing up the ground and inching closer to the Hughes house with each rainfall.

"We lost at least 10 feet just a couple of weeks ago."

Hughes fears the next storm will see his home of 30 years topple into the river.......He and his wife, Monica, have already started packing up some of their things.

They'd been holding out hope that government would help them save their house, but Hughes said he was told April 19 by his MLA, Richard Ames, that it wasn't a priority.

"I can't afford to do this on my own," said Hughes. "So we put a little money aside hoping they would come to the table, and we could work together and solve it."

He doesn't know how much a house rescue would cost.

If the home goes, Hughes said, the road will be next. Other properties along Route 104 would also be in danger if the erosion continues.

"They're going to have to solve it eventually anyway," Hughes said of the provincial government. ......THAT IS THE HUGHES STORY, AND YOU NOTICED THE GOVERNMENT SAYS IT ISN'T A PRIORITY, BUT THE HIGGS GOVERNMENT PROMISSED ANYONE WHO IS AFFECTED BY THE EFFECTS OF FLOODING WOULD BE CONSIDERED FOR HELP. I UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE OTHER PRIORITIES BUT SINCE THE MLA KNOWS ABOUT THIS , HE SHOULD HAVE SAID THAT THEY WOULD DO THEIR BEST TO LOOK INTO IT AND MAYBE PUT A TEMPORARY FIX IN PLACE TO STOP FURTHER EROSION, THAT WOULD BREAK THE BANK DOING THIS. ITS SAD TO SEE THIS AND THAT THEY MAY LOSE THEIR HOME BUT IS TYPICAL OF THE NB GOVERNMENT TO TURN THEM DOWN FOR HELP WITHOUT LOOKING INTO IT, AFTER ALL IT IS THEM THAT REPRESENTS ALL OF US AND IT IS BECAUSE OF FLOODING THAT THE EROSION TOOK PLACE, SOMETHING THE GOVERNMENT SAID THEY WOULD TAKE SERIOUSLY!