Fire officials say it could be Monday night before dozens of residents in Musquash can return home.
As many as 150 people were told to leave their homes late last night over concerns that the East Branch dam could collapse following heavy rain.
Lt. Kirk Westfield, public information officer for the Musquash Fire Department, tells us that the evacuation process went rather smoothly.
Westfield says residents were being told that they could be out of their homes for as long as 48 hours.
“People were kind of shocked and it kind of came all of a sudden, so it was a little bit of a slow process, but we managed to pull through it pretty good, I think,” says Westfield.
Evacuees were directed to the Carleton Community Centre in Saint John to register with the Canadian Red Cross and were then put up in a hotel.
Westfield says the dam appears to be holding and the water levels are starting to recede.
“The water is still rushing over the dam and down through the falls there at the bottom of the power station, but to my understanding nothing has transpired as of yet,” he says.
Rainfall totals along the Fundy coast varied from as little as 21 millimetres at the Saint John Airport to as much as 127 millimetres in Mechanic Settlement, near Fundy National Park.
Grand Manan reported 44 millimetres of rain while St. Stephen saw nearly 89 millimetres.