EDMONTON – Heavy rain and backed up drains in the City of Edmonton caused flooding in several areas and even shut down traffic on Tuesday.
“The rain has generated a number of calls to the City of Edmonton… mostly related to street flooding, catch basins being plugged, and we are responding to those,” explained Chris Ward, Manager of drainage services for the city.
Firefighters were called out to Edmonton’s Cloverdale neighbourhood early Tuesday afternoon, after the street began to flood.
The area of 98 Avenue and 92 Street was covered in shin-deep water around 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Emergency crews and city employees were on scene addressing the situation:
One resident describes the flooding as frustrating.
“This happened a couple of years back. It wasn’t as bad as you see here now… but the city has a system in place to evacuate the water from here, and it always seems to take hours before they get down here to do it,” says Jeremiah Townsend, who owns a unit in a Cloverdale condo building.
“It’s flooding. It’s about, I’d say, about eight inches high up in the parkade and in the garages, coming from the unit itself as well.”
“What can you do now? It’s raining harder than it was before. It’s flooding faster than it was before, and I guess you just wait it out and hopefully they come down and alleviate it soon.”
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“I’m not a drainage expert, but I would think they should have a look down here and know that this happens every time you have a heavy downfall. They should have something in place to alleviate this condition quicker, I think.”
Townsend says the last time the condo flooded, repairs on his suite took about a year, and the cost was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. He adds a lot of the owners had to go through their own insurance companies.
“Of course it’s a little bit frustrating, but at the same time, what can you do?” asks another owner, Sebastian Panciuk.
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“I was here in 2011, the last flood, and both times – at least from my perspective, my understand – it was rain, it’s drainage, so it’s definitely a city issue. They need to somehow work on getting the drains to either maybe have a higher capacity, or maybe there’s something blocking it. But definitely, at least in my mind, that’s where the problem is.”
Ward explained that, when it comes to drainage in the Cloverdale area, the city has to look at water levels in the North Saskatchewan as well as rain amounts.
“Because of the high river levels that we experienced on the weekend … we had closed a number of gates in the river from our storm sewer system in to the river in Cloverdale, as well as in the Riverdale and Rossdale communities,” he said.
“We do not normally open these gates until the river has gone down enough – to what’s called a 6.5 metre level – and then we will open these. As of 2:15 this afternoon the river had not gone down below that level, but we did go out there and start to open those gates because of the flooding we were experiencing in the Cloverdale community. We have those gates open now and the water level in the sewer system is going down. However, we are monitoring those continuously, because if the river level comes back up and comes back into our system, we would have river flooding the system and that would be a much more significant problem.”
“We will get to those gates when we feel it is safe,” Ward added. “I’m very sorry for the frustration those residents are experiencing. It really becomes a balancing point of flooding coming in from the river… at the same time as it’s raining in Edmonton.”
Panciuk is convinced the issue isn’t related to high river levels in the North Saskatchewan.
“It’s just a lot of rain that we’re getting, it’s not that the river is overflowing… it’s very much a drainage problem.”
“As a person who owns and lives here, you want to stay here… Absolutely, we need a long-term fix.”
He adds homeowners aren’t the only ones affected by this situation.
“The traffic outside is stopped. 98 Ave is major commuter route. A lot of people are being inconvenienced by this. What happens at rush hour?”
Global News has also received reports of flooding in other areas of the city, including 50 Street and 34 Avenue, 166 Street and Yellowhead Trail, 127 Street and Yellowhead Trail, 142 Street and 123 Avenue, and Whitemud and 178 Street.
Tuesday evening, the City of Edmonton updated the following road closures and traffic delays:
– Yellowhead Trail at St. Albert Trail will remain closed into at least 10 p.m.
– Delays on Groat Road northbound at 102 Avenue – drive with caution.
– The following roads have been reopened:
Yellowhead westbound, 156 Street to 170 Street
- 127 Street, Yellowhead to 127 Avenue (right lane northbound remains closed)
- 142 Street, 121 Avenue to Yellowhead Trail
- Victoria Park Road westbound to Groat Road (right lane is now open)
Motorists are asked to drive with caution on Groat Road northbound at 102 Avenue.
The right lane of Victoria Park Road is closed westbound to Groat Road and Groat Road northbound.
The City of Edmonton says much of Tuesday’s flooding is not related to the Flood Watch issued for the North Saskatchewan River. Officials say the river’s water level has gone up slightly, but is still more than two metres lower than when it crested Sunday afternoon. City officials say it’s caused by the volume of rain that’s come down and clogged drains.
“On the Yellowhead, it’s just the volume of rainfall we have. The storm sewer system can only take a certain amount,” said Ward.
“As of about 2:30 this afternoon, we have had – at our rain gages – upwards of 35 millimeters or about an inch and a half of rain since early this morning.”
Ward asks residents who see flooding in homes or on city streets to report it to 311. Crews will be responding to calls 24 hours a day.
“We are always learning from events like this. After this event, we will figure out what we have learned, and determine what processes could be changed for a future event.”
Meanwhile, Edmonton Fire Rescue Services continues to warn the public to avoid the North Saskatchewan River, which is currently under a high flow watch.
The warning comes after four surfers were ordered off the river on Tuesday afternoon.
The four surfers were spotted near the High Level Bridge around 3 p.m.
Fire Rescue crews caught up with the group near the Low Level bridge, where they were ordered off the river in the interest of their own safety.
Officials say currently the river is very fast moving and has a lot of floating debris, making it very dangerous for both the public and first responders. Edmonton residents are also asked to avoid low-lying trails in the River Valley.
Since river levels climbed on June 22, Fire Rescue has been dispatched to four river rescue calls.
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