Calgary’s flooded Deerfoot Trail causes concerns 2 weekends in a row

For a second straight weekend, Calgary’s Deerfoot Trail flooded, causing major problems for drivers.

Heavy rain on Sunday overwhelmed a storm sewer system between 32 Street N.E. and McKnight Boulevard N.E., causing it to overflow on that stretch of highway.

Saket Ayala shot video of the waterlogged road Sunday, while he was a passenger in a vehicle.

“It looked like we were driving through a river. Then we started seeing the trucks in front of us and it was like they were wading through a safari. The water was going well past their tires,” he said.

“As you come up a little further, you see this massive spout of water just gushing. I know it was the stormwater drain but the amount of water pumping out of there was ridiculous.​”

Flash flooding on the roadway has prompted concerns over how safe the area is when severe weather hits.

Both the city and province said this doesn’t point to something wrong with the storm system. It is because of the massive rainfall and storms that swept over the area in a short period of time.

Currently, the city and the province are not planning any changes in the area’s storm system.

The province issued a statement Monday, saying: “Alberta Transportation regularly monitors the Deerfoot Trail, including this location, and will continue to work with the City of Calgary and the maintenance contractor to address stormwater overflow at this location.”

The Alberta government said the City of Calgary maintains, owns and operates the stormwater system that is shared with Alberta Transportation along Deerfoot Trail.

“Both Carmacks and a City of Calgary crew attended the flooded area, and after an inspection, determined that a high volume of water that was flowing very quickly, combined with sediment in and around the catch basin, caused the overflow,” it said.

“Carmacks will schedule a hydrovac to clean it up as soon as possible. The catch basin had been cleaned after the last storm as well, so the material that they will be removing this time was brought down by Sunday’s rainfall.”

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Ward 5 Coun. George Chahal is pushing for a deeper look at flood mitigation in the area.

“We’ve had big talks about floods and the rivers flooding and the impact, but this is a huge impact of Calgarians using this roadway,” he said. “We need to find solutions to make sure that we can minimize any sort of flooding that occurs on this roadway.”

Chahal said he is in talks with city crews to gather data about drainage in the area to look at how the system could be improved.

– With files from Global News’ Lauren Pullen