An evacuation order was lifted Monday but about 100 families remained out of their homes after flooding forced hundreds from their houses on central Vancouver Island.

Heavy rains combined with high tides to cause the flooding in the Cowichan Valley on Friday and force residents out of 300 homes.

Many flood victims left without being able to pack any of their belongings but there were no reports of injury or death.

The area's New Democrat MLA, Bill Routley, said his home was one of dozens affected by the flood.

Routley said he bailed water out of his basement and called in machines to dig up his front yard to drain flood water from his property near one of the areas hardest hit by the flooding.

"We were up all night several nights in a row trying to keep the water from destroying the basement," said Routley. "We were carrying buckets there every 10 minutes all night long for hours."

Routley said he had four vacuum pumps sucking water out of his basement and he called in heavy machinery to dig a trench in his front yard which quickly filled with up to two metres of water.

"It looks like a bomb went off in our front yard because of the water," said Routley.

He estimated his home sustained between $5,000 and $10,000 water damage, and he's looking at putting in a new drainage system. He has not yet made a claim for government disaster assistance.

Routley said his damage was nowhere near what he saw just down the hill, where the contents of neighbours' homes were floating and ruined.

"Our damage pales in significance to the serious damage they have down in the valley bottom," Routley said.

High water in more than a dozen homes Monday prevented authorities from fully assessing the damage in the area.

Jim Price, a spokesman for the Provincial Emergency Program, said damage assessors could not get into 15 homes because they remained too full of water.

"The water table is quite high and it's not allowing the water to drain from crawl spaces and basements from some of the houses," Price said. "You could put a pump in there and you could pump all day and you just can't ... the water table is high, you've got to wait for that to drop."

Most of the damage was in the community of Duncan, B.C., located about 60 kilometres north of Victoria.

Price said the government has received 42 applications for financial assistance under the government's disaster funding, but disaster assistance assessors had only been able to inspect 27 homes.

Price said he still expects the first disaster relief cheques to arrive within two weeks, but it could be at least two more days before the government establishes a complete flood damage estimate.

Premier Gordon Campbell pledged help Monday.

"We've said to people all along we want to do everything we can to help them get through this," Campbell told reporters following a news conference on an unrelated issue. "We know it's incredibly traumatic. These are awfully difficult times for families."

The B.C. government has offered disaster funding, saying it will cover up to 80 per cent of costs after the first $1,000 and up to a maximum of $300,000.

Joe Barry, spokesman for the Cowichan Valley regional district, said the evacuation order had been lifted but an evacuation alert was still in place, meaning residents could be told to leave again.

Rapid Damage Assessment Teams, which determine the extent of damage, were in the area Monday.

"Of the 60 homes (they checked) there were only five that had any water above the crawl space," he said.

A combination of heavy rain, melting snow and high tides caused the Cowichan and Koksilah rivers and several creeks to spill their banks on Friday, flooding the surrounding area.

The wet, stormy weather is forecast to continue into this week. On Monday, a powerful coastal storm forced the ferry Northern Adventure to return to Prince Rupert midway through its sailing to the Queen Charlotte Islands.

B.C. Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall said the captain had hoped to ride out the storm but decided it was safer to turn back.