Rather than relaxing with family and friends, many New Brunswick residents and cottage owners have spent the May long weekend cleaning up debris left by recent record-breaking floods.

The last thing people trying to clean up from the devastating floods wanted to see was more water, and Sunday’s rain made the whole process a little more dreary.

“You still got to work, still got to get it done, we’ve only got so much of a summer left now,” said Mike Goodwin, who owns a cottage in Mill Cove, N.B.

Goodwin got away relatively unscathed. His cottage remained dry, but his bunk house is a pile of rubble. His mother’s camper was destroyed after waves of flood water drove a large beam through it.

“This one decided it wanted to go through the bedroom door and out through the back. It’s rather big, I’m not sure what we’re going to with it,” says Goodwin.

George Oram says he didn’t know what to expect when he visited his camp for the first time following the flood.

“At first when we looked in the driveway we were shocked at the amount of debris that was here, but once we walked down the road, it pales in comparison to what they’re going through right now,” Oram says about the damage done to his neighbours properties by the flood.

Cottage owners in Mill Cove say when the damage is as significant as it is, it’s difficult to know where to start cleaning up.

Others have simply torn down their properties and left.

Brent McLaughlin owns a company that specializes in moving and lifting buildings. He says he’s getting five to six calls a day from people asking for his help.

“I’ve been doing this since 1977 and I’ve never seen destruction like this is any of the other disasters that we’ve had,” says McLaughlin.

George Oram says the community effort will help with the clean-up.

“Everybody’s pitching in where they can,” says Oram.

Some cottage owners have already started piling up their trash, but they say it’s going to take most of the summer and maybe into the fall to restore their properties to what they were prior to the flood.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.