The City of Saskatoon is scrambling to clean up the mess following the worst storm to hit the city in nearly 30 years.
Eighty to 100 milimetres of rain fell on Saskatoon Tuesday night, overwhelming the sanitary sewer system and causing flooding in streets and residential homes.
The “˜supertanks’ in the sanitary sewer system, with a 3.5-million-litre capacity, were supposed to be able to withstand any storm. They were overwhelmed Tuesday night, however, with the additional water escaping out of manholes and onto the streets in the Dundonald and Confederation neighbourhoods.
Mayor Don Atchison on Wednesday didn’t put any blame on the massive tanks.
“Let’s be clear: the super-pipes didn’t fail. They worked," he said.
“This was a one-in-a-hundred years storm.”
City engineer Galen Heinrichs said the tanks were holding up fine until the last wave of rain hit after midnight.
“It finished us off with the finale,” he said, adding that the half-hour of rain “completely saturated and overwhelmed the system.
“They’re designed to mitigate regular storms . . . There’s not a lot of engineering structures you can make that can withstand (what happened Tuesday night).”
The wet spring has made the damage worse, Heinrichs said.
“Instead of some of that water being absorbed by the ground it just hits the pipes,” he said.
This is the fourth severe storm experienced in the Saskatoon area in the last five years.
Atchison doesn’t believe the supertanks need to be changed, saying the system became overwhelmed because it is not yet completed. The City of Saskatoon has a tender out for two more, which would add an additional 1.75 million litres of sewage capacity to the sanitary sewer system. The two additional supertanks are projected to be completed by 2013 and will be located on the city’s west side. That area experienced the brunt of Wednesday night’s storm.
Several City of Saskatoon facilities suffered storm damage.
The Fieldhouse was flooded and is closed until further notice, said Atchison. City officials are recommending the public use either the Terry Fox soccer fields or the Shaw Leisure Centre until the Fieldhouse is re-opened. Also, City Hall received three to six inches of water seepage but Atchison said it primarily occurred in a building housing vehicles and wouldn’t affect daily operations. Maintenance and groundskeeping crews are dealing with the situation, he said.
The City of Saskatoon has $250,000 of surplus money allocated to the city manager to be used at his discretion but Atchison said the money would not be used for the storm. He said there was already adequate money in the budget to clean up parks, trees, and other debris in the aftermath of the storm.
Atchison also turned down the possibility of using the money to help residents with property damage, saying that it didn’t fall within the City’s area of responsibility.
"I don’t see the City heading in that direction," he said.
An emergency city council meeting will be held Friday morning. Atchison expects council to pass a motion to apply for the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP).
Atchinson said he hasn’t been in contact with Premier Brad Wall but did reach out to one unnamed ministry member.
If the province designates Saskatoon as eligible for PDAP funding, residents could file damage claims under the program. Typically, insurance companies do not compensate residents for surface water damage on residential properties.
The City of Saskatoon has also issued a 24-hour water advisory, asking residents to minimize water usage until water levels in the sanitary sewer systems return to normal.
"We need to set the sanitary sewer system back to where it should be," said Atchison.
Residents are being encouraged to take short showers and avoid doing laundry or running the dishwasher.
aadamko@sp.canwest.com
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