Sections of Highway 5, east of Saskatoon remain closed due to flooding, according to the Highway Hotline, as the spring thaw continues in Saskatchewan.
The province’s Water Security Agency (WSA) says eastern and northeastern parts of the province around Carrot River are expected to be hit the hardest by flooding in the coming days. Some communities, including the RM of Meadow Lake, are already seeing the water pulling back.
“It’s really how this snowmelt has occurred, which has got us in this situation that we’re facing today,” said Shawn Jacques, president and CEO at the WSA.
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Four advisories have been issued since mid-April as a result of the above normal snowpacks in northern communities and a delayed start to autumn, he added.
“(The floods are) something that we haven’t seen in our province for a while – we’ve been kind of on that drier cycle … Unlike many years where we get an earlier start to the spring thaw, we just didn’t see that. The cooler temperatures remained right to the end of April,” said Jacques.
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“We saw some late snowstorms that brought significant precipitation to the northern part of the province. Then, when you get that rapid warm up it melts very quickly and then it overwhelms the river systems.”
When those river systems are too full, overland flooding begins.
As a result of floods, some communities including the Red Earth Cree Nation, initiated their emergency response plans and began evacuations.
The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency cannot provide a total number of evacuees for this flood season, it said. Evacuations are managed, and called for, by individual First Nations or municipalities.
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