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Thursday, June 24, 2010 — THE MEDICINE HAT NEWS


ROAD DESTROYED News Photo Emma Bennett


A bridge located at the bottom of Porter's Hill that connects Industrial Avenue to Highway 41A collapsed into Ross Creek during fl ooding on the weekend. Traffi c must now take a detour to access the 41A by taking highway 41 at Dunmore.


■ www.medicinehatnews.com SWIFT CURRENT PARK


News Photo Allison Werbowetsky As of Tuesday, June 22, bike paths and walkways remained blocked off at the Southside Park in Swift Current and remain completely submerged in water.


■ www.medicinehatnews.sabphotostore.com


TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010 Medicine Hat switches to recovery mode


AMANDA STEPHENSON astephenson@medicinehatnews.com


It looks as though the worst is over.


While the local state of emergency remains in effect, water levels are subsiding in the South Saskatchewan River and the creek systems. Medicine Hat received only fi ve mm of rain Monday — far less than the 30 mm Environment Canada had at one time been forecasting — and offi cials do not expect the small amount of precipitation to have any signifi cant impact on the water systems.


“Right now, we are in the recovery and restoration phase,” Medicine Hat Fire Chief Ron Robinson told reporters at the Tuesday press conference for the city’s emergency operations centre. “The weather for the rest of the week looks good, mostly sunny.”


With relief from the rain at last, the focus now switches to getting fl ood-affected residents back into their homes. Industrial Avenue, Mill Street, and the Balmoral area have been identifi ed as the hardest-hit areas, and task force teams have started assessing homes and businesses in those areas for safety and structural integrity. It is not known how long it will take to get everyone back into their homes, or whether there are homes that will be unsalvageable.


“But certainly (the dry weather) is going to give us time to activate our plan to get back into these areas, clean them up, and make them safe,” Robinson said.


Residents who have been evacuated from their homes are asked to call the fl ood information line at 403-502-8900 and provide their contact information. The city must have homeowners’ authorization in order to complete the safety inspections.


Until it can be determined there is no longer any danger to citizens, Robinson said the local state of emergency will remain in effect. City parks are still closed, although Echo Dale Regional Park is open. City crews are working to re-open roads,


News Photo Ian Sorensen Medicine Hat Fire Chief Ron Robinson dissects the current fl ood situation with media outside the Electric Utilities building on Tuesday morning. Robinson says the city is now in the "recovery and restoration phase.”


and road update information will be available at www.medicinehat.ca.


Residents are also reminded to stay away from coulees and cliff banks, as they still pose a hazard.


“As drying occurs, slope failures and sloughing will be unpredictable and will occur without warning,” Robinson said.


Officials busy assessing fl ood damage, re-zoning Flats may follow


Offi cials busy assessing flood damage,


Flats may follow


ANGUS HENDERSON ahenderson@medicinehatnews.com


News Photo Emma Bennett As the water recedes, debris is left behind in Kin Coulee Park. Clean-up and restoration has now began in Medicine Hat and Cypress County following days of fl ooding.


City and provincial offi cials, along with other experts, are assessing fl ood damage to a number of roadways, bridges and other infrastructure impacted by the recent fl ooding.


But as much as those immediate repairs have to be done, Ald. Robert Dumanowski suspects the city will have some other issues as well to deal with afterwards.


The chair of the city’s development and infrastructure committee, said a major concern is that fl ood damage to infrastructure in certain areas of the North Flats has now happened in three signifi cant events in less than 20 years — dating back to 1995, 2005 and now in 2010.


“I’m very concerned about the infrastructure in those areas, and that will have to be assessed after the immediacy of this event has been dealt with,” he told the News on Tuesday.


That assessment, he added, will have to include re-assessing the long-term zoning in some of those areas along where the creeks form the Cypress Hills fl ooded, and where water from the South Saskatchewan River has fl ooded in previous events.


He suspects that I-XL Industries will have to do a re-assessment as well.


“We can’t make rash decisions, but my concern is that we have areas of the fl ats along these creeks and river systems that continue to be fl ooded,” he explained.


“And it begs the question as to do we have a responsibility on the municipal and provincial level to look at those lands and re-zoning them, or acquiring those properties and returning them to an environmental state, or whatever.”


As the city reviews its recent fl ood-related actions as to what worked well, and what didn’t work so well, Dumanowski said the city has to look at things from a long-term standpoint, in order to mitigate this kind of thing impacting the same areas and people over and over again.


But those considerations are for the future — right now, he’s more concerned about getting the city back up and operating the way it was prior to the fl ooding.


Until a thorough assessment has been done of the city’s infrastructure, it’s premature to be forecasting what the eventual fi nancial fi gure for repairs will be, he stated. At the least, he stated it’s expected to be in the millions of dollars.


One thing that’s signifi cantly different this time, compared to previous fl oods, is that the whole region has been impacted because of the creeks from the Cypress Hills overfl owing, he pointed out.


And as a result, that’ll mean a much larger demand throughout the southeast for heavy equipment.


That, he said, will necessitate a continuing co-ordinated effort between the City and Cypress County.


The Volunteer Centre will remain open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. to provide assistance as needed. Emotional and distress support is also available.


Residents can register for disaster recovery assistance by calling 403-502-8900.


ALLISON WERBOWETSKY Prairie Post


Golf courses see the worst of it in Swift Current


Although the rain has fi nally let up, repercussions of the nearly six week-long showers are showing up all over the city.


At the brunt of it all are the golf courses. Chinook Golf Course has been forced to play nine holes as opposed to its usual 18, and the Elmwood Golf and Country Club is now down to 15.


The cause, however, is not fl ooded fairways or soggy greens. Instead, the rising water levels of the Swift Current Creek have washed over the bridges on both courses making some holes diffi cult to get to.


“We have a lot of dry holes on the front nine but it’s getting to them that’s the problem,” said John Gaudet, general manager at Chinook Golf Course.


Golfers can still play the back nine holes at Chinook, except for hole 13 which is partly covered in water and is temporarily substituted by the sixth hole. Luckily, none of the greens and only a few of the tee boxes on the course have been affected.


“It’s not bad. What’s under water on 13 is not the tee boxes, but the fareway is under water and the front part of the green because it’s on the low level of the creek,” Gaudet said.


As water continues to fl ow steadily into the creek from Duncairn Resevoir, the creek’s water levels aren’t anticipated to taper until next week at the earliest.


“As long as that’s happening, our golf course is going to have to stay pretty much where it is,” he said.


The major issue is that the bridge between holes one and two is currently completely submerged by water, and one end of it will have to be repaired before those holes can be reopened to golfers. However, if it comes down to it, there are ways around it.


“In order to get over there you have to go all the way around, but we’re prepared to do that if this continues, we’re going to have to make a make-shift — well, a little more make-shift, I guess you’d call it — course,” he said.


That bridge, however, is a high priority on Chinook’s fi x-it list. It’s what the service vehicles and equipment use to get across to the front nine holes.


“That will be the No.1 priority, I believe. After that, it’ll just be one thing at a time. Once the water recedes the grass has to be cut, and if there’s any salt or dirt, that has to be cleaned up. I think we’ve been pretty lucky actually in some ways, it could have been worse. If it had gotten to the greens, that would’ve been more serious,” Gaudet said.


Holes 11, 12 and 13, the three holes located on the west side of the creek, are currently all out of play at Elmwood Golf and Country Club. The extent of the damage occurred June 18, just after the initial burst of water was let out of the reservoir early that morning. However, the water still hasn’t let up.


“If anything it’s gone up since then. There’s defi nitely no let-up for sure ... (but) by Monday the 28th, hopefully we’ll be back up to all of our holes,” said Sheldon Reinhardt, general manager at Elmwood.


For Elmwood, the major repair jobs will include cleaning up where the water has hit the fairways and fi xing the bridges.


“The big thing will be replacing gravel and probably having to put plywood down and getting the bridges all ready so the golf carts can go over both of them,” he said.


Over the last three years as GM, Reinhardt has never before had to deal with bridge problems during the summer months, and admits he wasn’t entirely prepared for anything like this to happen.


“We do prepare for it in the fall because in the springtime, the water gets going pretty good and it has big chunks of ice, so in the fall we take the bridges out and we don’t put them in usually until about the third week of April. We do take precautions in the spring, but defi nitely nothing in the summer,” he said.


The excessive rain has forced Reinhardt to cancel tournaments, and the typically high traffi c of walk- in golfers has slowed right down. In total, green fees at Elmwood are down $15,000 so far this year compared to last season, and the tournaments now pushed back to July and August will make for a very busy next three months.


“It’s going to be a lot tougher for people to get out golfi ng,” he said.


However, both Reinhardt and Gaudet remain optomistic in hopes the courses will be back up and running at full capacity by the end of the month.


“The water is reasonably clean so it shouldn’t take too long. It’s going to be maybe a little messy for a while but if we get some good sunshine, it should dry up fairly quickly,” Gaudet said.


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