SASKATOON – While water levels have reached their peaks in some communities in Saskatchewan, residents of Cumberland House have been left in a far more precarious situation, waiting for the worst to come.
“We are expecting the water levels in Cumberland House will be larger than in 2011, so that will flood portions of the area,” said Patrick Boyle of the Water Security Agency (WSA).
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Regional staff have been on the ground working with First Nation and northern village officials through the Emergency Flood Damage Reduction Program, according to Boyle.
“They’ve been working on doing some mitigation work and we have an engineering consultant up there and it’s the same individual that worked on the 2011 one,” he said.
Typically, flows in the area are between 500 and 600 cubic metres per second, but this time the WSA is anticipating flows between 3,000 and 3,500 cubic metres per second.
As of Monday, 900 people had registered themselves with the Red Cross.
There are more than 2,000 people overall in the community. Evacuees have been divided among Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Melfort and Nipawin.
Officials say more space can be made available at makeshift emergency shelters, if necessary in the future.
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