‘We don’t have a flood. We have a disaster’
One resident seeking court injunction
yellow police tape and an idle sheriff ’s car block access to the off-ramp overlooking the kilometres-wide pool and muddy berm that once led to the town of High River.
But that doesn’t stop residents like Richard Craig from showing up to have a look, chat with police and try to find out when he and his neighbours might be able to go back home.
“I could be making money and I wouldn’t have to put a strain on the disaster [aid] money,” he said while standing outside his car, allowed to get no closer than the top of the hill. “I’m a light trucker. My truck and trailer is driveable, but they won’t let me go get it. It’s driveable. I could drive it out and be working. They won’t let me go.”
displaced by an intense downpour that breached the river that runs through the town of almost 13,000, residents of High River have been kept from their homes since Thursday.
The aptly named community often bears the brunt of rising flood water, but no one has seen anything like the damage sustained in the past week, when much of the south of the province was hit with sudden rains and flash floods leading to the worst deluge in Alberta’s history.
Government officials said 80% of the town is without basic ser vices, including water, electricity and sewage. yet at least 300 residents, including some with children, according to a military officer, have refused to leave.
And those who have been displaced are clamouring to return, clean their homes and move on with their lives. However, conditions are just too unsafe, say the mayor and emergency personnel. And with no timeline for the town’s reopening, tensions are now so high that RCMP have recorded at least one violent incident: On Sunday, a man brandished a knife at the police barricade, demanding to be allowed to return to his property.
One resident is seeking a court injunction to force his way back in.
“What you don’t understand is that we don’t have a flood. We have a disaster. Floods are very easy to deal with. Water comes, water goes and then we clean up,” said mayor emile Blokland. “This is a major disaster that we’re dealing with at the same level as the [2011] Slave Lake fire.”
In addition to the structural damage caused by the water, the river mud piled high on the street is beginning to dry, creating a flour-like film filled with the bacterial remains of dead animals and fecal matter.
“We do not have sanitary sewer. We have no water for these folks. We have no utilities for these folks. When they get here, we have no gas for their cars. We don’t have a grocery store open. We don’t have a medical centre. We don’t have protection services for them, we don’t have a drugstore open for them,” the Mayor said.
Almost two-dozen reporters, escorted by the military in Light Armoured Vehicles, toured the community on Tuesday. The hardest hit areas were knee-deep in thick mud; train tracks had been ripped from their foundations and twisted. Boats from a nearby marine store piled up next to ripped concrete and hockey nets. Military personnel warned of still-undiscovered sinkholes, mould and sewage.
yet during the tour, a woman and a man on rode past on their bicycles. “We wanted to save our home,” said Kelly dennis, a bag of chips and other junk food inside a bag on the bars of her bike. She said she purchased the food from a gas station on the southeast side of town. “It’s stirred up over here, but on the northwest, it isn’t as bad.”
Cam Crawford, a High River resident, said he is in the process of filing a court injunction to get access to his home. He said he represents hundreds of residents who are palpably frustrated.
“We’re fighting authorities as well as fighting the flood,” he said. They want access to their homes, at least during the daytime, so they can begin to tear out drywall and wet carpet before the mould starts. They have a plan to bring in portable toilets, potable water and 30 generators to get the process going.
“We know these people want to come home and get back to their homes,” said Brian Cornforth, chief of the town’s emergency operations.
enormous amounts of water still need to be removed from communities. Afterward, the city needs to inspect homes to ensure they’re safe to return to, he said.
“That takes time.”