I have absolutely zero faith when the powers that be say "this is a one-in-50 year rain event" or "one-in-500 year flood."
I covered three "one-in-50 rain events" within five years while in North Battleford. In 2011, they called the flooding of the Souris River a "one-in-500 year" flood. If that's the case, then this region should now be good for 1,000 years.
It looks like some, but not all, of the Souris River basin got missed. The Rafferty Dam likely won't see massive releases, but I expect there will be some big ones from the nearby Alameda dam, since areas that it drains received up to seven inches of rain. Minot likely won't get whacked the way it was three years ago, but north of the border, back in Manitoba, I suspect it will look very similar to 2011. Pierson, Melita, Deloraine, Reston - all these areas have been just hammered. Unlike 2011, when it rained two inches every Monday for eight weeks with occasionally higher concentrations, this was widespread, in concentrations exceeding six inches in many areas, all in one weekend.
The Qu'Appelle and Assiniboine systems have also been slammed, and all of that feeds into the Assiniboine River, headed for Winnipeg. Three years ago, they had to do employ extreme measures to take the pressure off that river near Brandon, and I expect it will happen again soon.
The maps of road closures, both in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, tell the tale. The closures are far more extensive than we saw in 2011. In many cases, it's not just water on the highway, but the highway is actually washed away. That's a much bigger problem.
As it stands right now, on Canada Day, there is really only one route joining southern Saskatchewan with southern Manitoba, that being the TransCanada Highway, but it had been closed around Virden for a while, and is still closed
The satellite picture animation showed something we are not used to on the prairies. The storm looked eerily like the cyclonic formation of a tropical storm, with a counter-clockwise rotation and defined rain bands.
Gainsborough was evacuated, with many people going to nearby Carievale, only to have the water cut off all roads around that community, making it an island.
A small dam near Redvers was in trouble. The Melville hospital and nursing home was evacuated because water was somehow getting out of the local reservoir. They needed a helicopter to check it out.
The Leader Post reported on Canada Day that, "The "unprecedented" flooding that has put southern Saskatchewan under water will come with a higher price tag than the 2011 flood."
So much for once in 500 years.
I'm sure that more than a few people are asking, "Is this climate change?"
Maybe it is. Maybe these things happened frequently 300 years ago, but no one recorded it. Our climate records go back such a short period of time do we really know what "normal" is? Is there ever a normal?
Perhaps our climate changes all the time. Maybe we are going to have to adjust our infrastructure to deal with more water on the prairies. Every washout should be replaced with larger culverts, for instance, or perhaps beefier bridges with higher capacity underneath.
This flood is not over yet. It will take a long time for the water to clear, the roads to be rebuilt and life to return to normal. Nothing is saying we won't see more rain, either.
Don't bet on those once-in-whatever estimations. They are being proven wrong all the time.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
