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“I find that absolutely incredible” that they have the right to go into a person’s home and take their “belongings,” said resident Brenda Lackey, after learning Mounties have been securing residents’ guns. “When people find out about this there’s going to be untold hell to pay.”

About 30 RCMP officers set up a blockade at a checkpoint preventing 50 residents from walking into the town Thursday.

Officers also laid down a spike belt to stop anyone from attempting to drive past the blockade. That action sent the crowd into a rage.

“What’s next? Tear gas?” shouted one resident.

“This is the reason the U.S. has the right to bear arms,” said Charles Timpano, pointing to the group of Mounties.

Officers were ordered to fall back about an hour into the standoff in order to defuse the situation and listen to residents’ concerns.

“We don’t want our town to turn into another New Orleans,” said resident Jeff Langford. “The longer that the water stays in our houses the worse it’s going to be. We’ll either be bulldozing them or burning them down because we’ve got an incompetent government.”

Langford blasted High River Mayor Emile Blokland over comments made Wednesday in which Blokland said residents would be allowed to return after businesses, such as hardware and drug stores, are opened.

Langford said Premier Alison Redford should come to High River to address residents’ concerns and provide information.

“This is at the highest tension,” he said. “What’s going to happen next is that people are just going to be walking across these fields, and I don’t care if they put hundreds of thousand of police officers there, they’re not going to stop me from getting in.”