REGINA – Rising floodwater has forced more than 50 people from their homes on a Saskatchewan First Nation and led to emergencies in half a dozen communities.
Five Saskatchewan municipalities and two First Nations were under states of emergency Tuesday.
The towns of Maidstone and Radisson, the village of Borden, the rural municipality of Great Bend and the Poundmaker First Nation – all located northwest of Saskatoon – had declared emergencies.
A state of emergency was in place in the east-central rural municipality of Elfros and the Sakimay First Nation, located near Grenfell between Regina and the Manitoba boundary.
Just over 50 people were moved off the Poundmaker reserve and put up in hotels in surrounding communities.
“Typically that has been as a result of access and some fear that in cases of other emergencies that people would not be able to move through the community,” said Duane McKay, Saskatchewan’s commissioner of emergency management.
“So we have moved some folks out of those communities and we have established an evacuation team…to assist the First Nations in their evacuations.”
McKay said about 50 homes are also at risk in the town of Radisson and residents are “on alert to move.”
The water is just beginning to flow in many areas because the snow melt has been delayed by colder-than-normal temperatures this spring.
Temperatures were cooler again Tuesday and brought fresh snow across much of southern Saskatchewan. But officials said that was a good thing because it slowed how fast water levels increased.
“We won’t have a large impact on (water) peaks in areas that have already melted, it will just slow down the recession,” said Patrick Boyle with the Water Security Agency.
“There are areas that haven’t melted yet and have a solid snow pack, so it’s just going to add to that because there’s still snow sitting on the ground and waiting to melt off.”
“This is a very late melt that we haven’t really seen before, so it’s difficult for us to keep track of the net snow balance, that basically means to predict how much snow has been lost through earlier run-off…and then really what is new,” he added.
Still, Boyle said snow is better than rain because rain would speed up snow melt, leading to faster and higher water peaks.
The agency has said the entire southern half of Saskatchewan will see water run-off levels above or well above normal. Run-off is expected to be very high and flooding is likely to occur from Moose Jaw to Indian Head, including Regina, and south past Weyburn to near the United States border. Saskatoon, Prince Albert and North Battleford are in the red zone as well.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Water Security Agency warned people to be aware of the potential for ice jamming on the North Saskatchewan River between the Borden bridge and Prince Albert.
“Ice jam formation is unpredictable and can cause rapid rises in water levels. This creates the potential for serious and significant flooding,” the agency said in a news release.
Flooding closed a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway on Monday night when water overtopped the road in several sections between Indian Head, east of Regina, and Whitewood, near the Manitoba boundary. The highway reopened Tuesday.
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