It's business as usual at the Pitt Meadows Paddling Club, even with the facility hugging the banks of the swollen Alouette River.

Last week, rising Alouette waters touched the club's storage trailer wheels and covered the floors of its tool and PaddleALL sheds.

"It [the river] is probably up about a metre higher than normal, right now," said the club commodore Rick Hammer. "This is the highest that I've seen it in five years."

The water was so high at one point, Hammer's 6'6" son Brian, standing on the back of a dragon boat while steering the vessel, was able to the vessel, was able to reach up and touch Silver Bridge while his boat cruised under it.

Hammer said in past years, he's never had any issues with any of the club's sheds being underwater.

Higher water levels have made it more difficult for the club's coaching staff to get the equipment to the paddlers.

"But because all of our boats are on top of the water, we haven't had to cancel any programs," Hammer said.

The only paddlers affected are those involved in the wheelchair access program, which was cancelled for one day.

The club lightened the impact of the high waters by moving its dock further off-shore.

"We have had the occasion when people had to come off the dock and still have to go through three or four inches of water to get up to where the dry land is," Hammer said.

The watershed is 228,000 sq. kilometres, that feeds the Fraser River, Hammer estimated.

"It doesn't take much rain, up there, all the way around, to eventually, three days later, end up down here," he said. "If we were to have two or three days of rain down here, at the same time when all that water's arriving, it could back up again." Hammer hopes the worst is over.

To keep them dry, the club's boats were elevated to the second tier of the club's boat rack, and members are ready to move them up to the third tier, if need be, Hammer said.

"The ones that are on the ground are sit-on-top or stand-on-top boats so it doesn't matter if they get water in them," Hammer said.

Last week, Hammer said he could almost walk to the sheds - which house the paddles and PaddleALL equipment - without getting too wet.

Coaches slosh through water to access the equipment.

"If [the water] goes down another six inches, the sheds are accessible, even though there's still water in there," he said.

Hammer hopes the sheds' floors will dry out and won't suffer any water damage.

"Everything of importance was lifted up off of the floors," he said. "Anything that we felt was going to be jeopardized was moved higher."

tlandreville@mrtimes.com