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FLASH FLOOD SUBMERGES TOWN

The Town of Westlock and areas of Westlock County were slammed with a once-in-a-generation flash flood Monday night that filled hundreds of basements with water, closed roads and devastated businesses.
Who needs to go to the lake? This photo taken by Bryanna Findlay shows Sobeys’ owners Tom and Susan Vesely paddling a canoe across the store’s parking lot on Aug. 22. In the
Who needs to go to the lake? This photo taken by Bryanna Findlay shows Sobeys’ owners Tom and Susan Vesely paddling a canoe across the store’s parking lot on Aug. 22. In the background is their son Jason Vesely keeping water from the door.

The Town of Westlock and areas of Westlock County were slammed with a once-in-a-generation flash flood Monday night that filled hundreds of basements with water, closed roads and devastated businesses.

The town issued an overland flood alert through the Alberta Government’s Emergency Alert website around 7 p.m., and kept emergency responders on alert into the early hours of Aug. 23.

Bursts of heavy rain throughout Monday’s early and midday hours left nearly 40 millimetres of accumulated rainfall throughout the area, but intense rainfall from 3-7 p.m. brought that number to around the 110 millimetre mark, pushing the town’s main discharge system along 90th Avenue well over capacity.

According to town officials, nearly 30 millimetres of that fell within a 15-minute timeframe around 4 p.m., backing up the town’s sanitary and storm water systems.

Areas in northwest, downtown and central Westlock, including the town’s west industrial park were submerged by the floodwaters, filling basements, ditches and roadways.

“The town’s storm system follows the natural contours of the land. If we’d received the same amount of rain over a 24-hour period, we wouldn’t have experienced flooding,” town CAO and emergency manager Dean Krause said, adding that approximately 60 per cent of the town’s storm drains flow to the northwest, towards the Wabash Creek, pooling water along that path when the system is overloaded.

“No storm water system is designed to take that much volume in a short period of time.”

Compounding the problem, many residents’ sump pumps pushed fresh rainwater back into the town’s sanitary system.

Mayor Ralph Leriger was on vacation when the storm commenced, but returned Wednesday night.

He applauded the response of both emergency crews and local residents while responding to the disaster.

“It sure takes the shine off your holidays when you’re worried about your community, but I’m proud of everyone and how they reacted,” Leriger said.

“Certainly Albertans and the people of Westlock are resilient. That seems to be the catch-word, but it’s true. Now in the aftermath and the cleanup, we’ll get through and start looking to see if there’s any significant improvements that can be made.”

Approximately 20 volunteer firefighters from the town and half that many county firefighters responded to the incident with resources from the Pickardville, Busby and Barrhead fire departments on standby Monday night.

“You can plan and plan and plan, but until the actual emergency happens, you know you’re basically playing catch up as to the conditions,” said Town of Westlock fire chief Stuart Koflick.

Reports of vehicles stalled out in water began to come in around 3:30 p.m. on Monday, he said.

Emergency services received eight to 10 calls throughout the night, a number that could have been a lot higher if not for the successful implementation of joint emergency management.

“We were taking in information in real-time so that we could put our processes into place to identify the emergency delivery of resources,” he said.

“We do risk assessment every year and honestly, floods are certainly not on the Top 10. We’re not located near any major water bodies such as rivers, or creeks so an overland flood such as we had due to the massive amount of rain was unprecedented.”

The flooding brought the town to Level 1 of its Emergency Management Plan, turning the town’s fire hall into an incident-command centre.

Town officials began updating Westlock’s emergency management plan last June. Krause said that the updated plan performed well and allowed emergency staff to respond decisively.

“We’re exceptionally proud of our staff. Our public works crew, our fire department, they were on it right away even before the rain started,” Krause said.

Early warning systems were crucial in helping to evaluate the town and county’s response, Krause added.

“We assessed the weather and monitored the radar to see how much more rain was supposed to come down and with all of that information we decided that it was going to be a short enough event that we didn’t need to move to a higher level of the [emergency management plan],” Krause said.

With floodwaters receded, Krause said the town will now move into a recovery phase.

Though that portion of the plan is expected to be minor, many residents may require help moving forward with repairs and assessment.

“We’re also assessing the damage to town infrastructure and costs there. It’s something no one wants to be through,” Krause said.

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