The capital region was once again under a severe thunderstorm watch Saturday evening.
Environment Canada issued the watch for Edmonton, St. Albert and Sherwood Park at 4:22 p.m.
For only the second time in its history, the Servus Heritage Festival had to put their emergency plan into use.
Around 5 p.m. Saturday, the storm forced thousands out of Hawrelak Park, as nearly 50 millimeters of rain fell.
“If there are storm clouds- the transit gets a whole bunch of buses in and we just pack them and fire everybody out,” Jim Gibbons, executive director with the Heritage Festival said.
As of 5:30 p.m. the Taste of Edmonton and K-Days were still open and operating but organizers with both festivals were keeping an eye on the sky.
At Edmonton’s largest summer festival, K-Days, most people moved into the Expo Centre to wait out the storm. The tall rides were shut down for a time on the midway, with Northlands seeing only half the rainfall amounts recorded in the south end of the city.
The storm created chaos on Edmonton’s Whitemud Drive, flooding a section of the freeway between between 111 street and 99 street. It’s the second time in less than a week that the popular road has been flooded.
READ MORE: Summer storm shuts down portion of Edmonton’s Whitemud Drive.
Much of Alberta has been under weather watches and warnings throughout the week and, on Wednesday, a storm caused significant flash flooding in Edmonton.
Watch below: City of Edmonton crews were still cleaning up and repairing traffic lights Wednesday night after a severe summer storm rocked Edmonton earlier in the afternoon. The storm caused flash flooding and shut down one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. Shallima Maharaj has the latest.
To report severe weather, send an email to storm@ec.gc.ca or tweet reports to #ABStorm.
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with files from Quinn Ohler and Phil Heidenreich
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