nature, Photography

The Downside of Spring

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Remember the river photo I posted a while back?

Well, here it is now, about 10 km further north.

Photo by Loren McGinnis/CBC

Last weekend’s storm (massive rain, massive snow, more massive rain, then a freeze) caused the ice pans to block the water flow from further up-river, resulting in a flood. Parts of the nearby town have been evacuated and other parts are completely under water.

Photo by Aaron Tambour

Flooding is terrible.

25 thoughts on “The Downside of Spring”

    1. The last flood was apparently in 1963, and it was much less severe (a small portion of the town built on lowlands). The river banks are very high at the majority of the town site, so this flood is extreme as most of it isn’t on a flood plain. Given the high banks, it was thought that this town was rather safe.

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      1. I know it can be very upsetting to have your home flooded (bin there) – and some things are never the same. I’m sorry for the people affected by the flooding.

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        1. I didn’t know that you have experienced a flood. So sorry to hear about that, Anneli. Friends of mine experienced a bad one in Medicine Hat years ago, and they basically had to re-build their house afterwards. There’s now a berm in place at their house but if this flood is anything to go by (in this flood the river breached a 100 m embankment), in future berms will be useless.

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          1. We only had a foot of very muddy water in the basement, but there were three bedrooms and a bathroom down there, and we had furniture ruined and books that had mud-water damage forever. It wasn’t even a river; just spring runoff in a newly developed part of town without curb and gutter yet. Nowhere for the water to go. It ran across the street like a raging creek and right into our downstairs area. No pumps – just the bucket brigade carrying water upstairs to dump it out. It was very traumatic for my parents. So I do sympathize with people whose houses are surrounded by water.

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          2. Wow! What a shame, and what a lot of money lost and extra work to set things straight again. I know people who stayed (it’s Hay River; you may have seen it on the news) instead of evacuating, and with a lot of sandbagging they managed to keep their basements dry. They’ve been working round the clock and are exhausted, but it’s better than a water-logged house. The water has fortunately started to recede now, though.

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