Two Weyburn couples who played host to couples from India as part of a Friendship Exchange program, decided that a visit to Lake Louise and Banff in the Canadian Rockies should be a part of their experience.
Two Weyburn couples who played host to couples from India as part of a Friendship Exchange program, decided that a visit to Lake Louise and Banff in the Canadian Rockies should be a part of their experience.
However, the four couples ended up in a hotel in Canmore when torrential flooding hit that town and southern Alberta in general, cutting the town off from the outside world, and as of Friday, they were stuck in the town without knowing how long they would be there.
The Weyburn couples were Denis and Laraine Tremblay, and Dave and Pat May; Denis was the Weyburn leader for the exchange visit, which included five couples from India. The three other couples who were part of the exchange already flew back to India from Saskatoon.
In the end, the four couples were finally able to leave Canmore on Sunday morning, and the two Indian couples were dropped off in Calgary by 9 a.m. Sunday, and they were to leave for India on Monday; the Weyburn couples made it home late Sunday night.
Part of the difficulty was, for Kirti and his wife Jyoti Mehta, and Shankar Subramanian and his wife Usha Medina, they were supposed to fly home to India on Friday; unfortunately, they were unable to leave Canmore, and could not even give the airlines an alternate date for leaving, because they had no idea how long they would be there, said Laraine in an interview on Friday.
"All the roads out of Canmore are closed, and it's continued to pour," she said, noting she and Denis went for a drive around the town and saw vehicles that were submerged with only the roof showing.
"The semis are just lined up."
"We're in a hotel that's on higher ground," said Laraine, noting by that time 165 mm of rain had fallen with another 30 to 50 mm forecast to fall that day.
As of Friday, they had begun rationing gas; when Denis went to buy some, he was only allowed to buy $25 worth. In some gas stations, they had signs up saying they had run out of fuel altogether and couldn't get any more.
The highway west to Banff was closed due to the flooding, and east to Calgary, parts of the Trans-Canada Highway had been eroded and was impassable. By Monday, the highway to Banff was still closed.
"We have no idea when we'll be able to leave. We're just surrounded; there's more devastation all the time. What you see on the news, that's what we're seeing here," said Laraine.
She and Denis decided if they had to stay, they would help out, and gave their names to the authorities in Canmore, so if volunteers were needed at all to help out, they could call on them.
On Monday, Denis said it seemed the town had plenty of volunteers on hand to help out, as they were never called on to volunteer.
Laraine noted that while watching all the flood coverage on the Weather channel, there were reports of heavy flooding in the northern parts of India.
The couples from India did get to visit Lake Louise, Jasper and Banff before ending up at Canmore; one of them, Shankar, was the prime photographer for their group so he was enjoying the sightseeing very much, said Laraine.
Meantime, at the hotel they're staying in, there were tourists staying there from such countries as Holland, Germany, France and from all across Canada.
