Lampman flooded after four days of rain
After about 10 inches of rain in four days, residents of Lampman experienced flooding unlike any they had seen before.
Greg Wallin, administrator for the Town of Lampman and the RM of Browning, said the rain started last Wednesday and barely let up until Saturday.
“There was three feet of water on Main Street and there was anywhere from six to eight inches out on my grass that came in off the street,” said longtime Lampman resident Scott Greening.
The damage to the town is substantial.
“Streets that have never been underwater were underwater,” said Wallin. “What that does is then it also covers the manholes to the sanitary sewer system so it overloads the sanitary sewer system.”
This overload caused the sewer to back up in a number of residents’ homes. Greening’s home was one of them.
“I’ve had a cleaning crew come in and they’ve removed two feet of the gyprock, they’ve removed all the flooring, they’ve removed all the baseboards, the door jams, the doors, the closet doors. They’ ve pretty much gutted my basement,” he said.
Greening said he couldn’t even venture a guess at what the total cost of the damages to his home will be, but he’s hoping his insurance will cover it.
The streets in the town have also been severely damaged from sitting under water for so long and having heavy equipment on them.
“With the tank trucks driving across and stuff trying to alleviate the water, you know, we’ve damaged a lot of the streets,” said Wallin. “There’s tens upon tens of thousands of dollars (of ) damage to the streets.”
He said the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program will be coming out to the community on Thursday, and he’s hoping the town will receive financial assistance to repair the streets.
“If we can’t get financial assistance to help us repair it, it just won’t get repaired. You know, it’ll get patched is what will happen,” he said.
The town has also been wanting to start work on fixing problem areas it has noticed, but never seems to have a chance to do so between floods.
Lampman also saw floods in 2016 and 2011. Wallin said repairs had just wrapped up from the 2016 flood when this one hit, and that this year’s flood has been worse than previous ones.
“We hadn’t got any process in place yet to start fixing the problem areas,” he said. “We got to start getting water away faster, you know, whether it be putting more storm sewers in or something.”
Lampman floods frequently because of where it’s located.
Wallin described Lampman as being very flat, like the bottom of a bowl, with a surrounding area that drains into it. Although the town does have a storm sewer system, it was unable to handle the vast amounts of rain that poured in in a short amount of time.
Wallin expects repairs to take until next year to complete.
He offered his heartfelt thanks to all the surrounding RMs, private companies and individuals that offered their help during the flood and who continue to show support during the cleanup process.