Post-flood: Alberta communities assess damage as water levels fall

West Central Alberta communities are assessing damage and making repairs as flood waters recede.

In the city of Edson, 100 kilometers west of Edmonton, a local state of emergency ended Monday after a tumultuous two weeks of fire and flooding.

Flooding prompted the emergency call on June 19, just days after city residents were given the green light to go home following a wildfire order after six days.

Mayor Kevin Zahara said Monday the community received more than 5 inches (135 mm) of rain and about 60 homes and businesses in the community had basements flooded.

Portions of Edson’s 6th Avenue, which connects the east and west sides of the city and is the main access road to the hospital, are also closed due to flood damage.

“We will also need to repair some roads and underground infrastructure. We have also been actively looking at upgrading some of our storm sewers and sewer lines,” said Zahara.

“There are a lot of costs that we as a municipality will have to deal with.”

Zahara said engineers are still assessing the extent of repairs that will be needed, and the city does not yet have an estimate of the cost to repair the damage.

Some communities in surrounding Yellowhead County were also affected by flooding – at one point, people living in Lower Robb were ordered to leave their homes when rivers began to overflow, and shelter orders were issued for some residents from the hamlet of Peers after a bridge was damaged.

The order was canceled Friday, but there is a speed and weight limit on the bridge until it can be reassessed this week.

“You’re Not Going To Believe This – We Have A Hot Tub”

Yellowhead County resident Roxie Orge told CBC Monday that when she checked the aftermath of the flooding around her own property, she stumbled upon a mystery.

She and her husband saw flooding begin near their property last week, but the water did not reach the home or garage.

“Wednesday, when the river was still high, you could see from the road that there was a blue object on our property, well out in the bush, washed up with the debris,” she said, adding that she thought it might a kayak.

When they take a walk later and check all the wiped out subsidence and wiped out trees, they find something else.

“My husband basically said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. We have a hot tub.'”

She snapped a picture of the round, barrel-like cedar hot tub with a blue liner, which she’d mistaken for a kayak.

Orge said she’s trying to find out who it might belong to and how far it’s traveled – where it’s been deposited in the bush, there’s probably no way to get it out other than to take it apart.

But she said she wasn’t surprised the flood moved something so big.

“The Edson River, which is quite a smaller river, it was just rushing and rapids. It was really insane.”

Cleaning up Whitecourt

Rising water levels also triggered a local state of emergency last week in Whitecourt, about 100 miles northeast of Edson, with evacuation orders for some riverside properties.

Whitecourt Mayor Tom Pickard said Monday the warnings and orders have now been lifted. Some access roads around the city were blurred, but he said there was no serious damage to city infrastructure.

But residents have been working to clean up the aftermath of flooding at the city’s Festival Park and Whitecourt Golf and Country Club, both of which lie along the Athabasca River.

“When the river came in, and when it withdrew, it left a very fine silt,” Pickard said.

“The whole golf course was flooded, so there is still a lot of sludge on the course. They now have a crew of volunteers and their staff working to clean it up.”

Parts of Festival Park are still closed, but Pickard said Canada Day activities there could continue as planned this weekend.

“We are monitoring upstream water levels and rainfall. For now, we feel that the recent major event is over and we will prepare for the next one.”