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Saskatchewan residents receiving help to deal with flooding

Jul 13, 2016 | 5:02 PM

The flooding situation in Saskatchewan is improving now that the rain has stopped.

The worst hit area remains Arborfield — 88 km northeast of Melfort. Officials remain on the ground with equipment and a command post has been set-up .

Arborfield partially lifted its mandatory evacuation order Wednesday afternoon. However, it is still one of four communities under local states of emergencies along with the rural municipality (RM) of Arborfield, Carrot River, and the Shoal Lake Cree Nation. Estevan lifted ended its state of emergency Wednesday afternoon.

The rainfall has been a measure of how bad things got in some places as over 100 mm fell — about four inches — particularly in northeast and east. Reports from Estevan suggest as much as 130 mm — over five inches — fell. That amount has set records at the Water Security Agency (WSA). Burntout Brook is a waterway that officials monitor which feeds Carrot River, past Arborfield. At peak flow, 65 cubic meters per second was passing by.

“There’s approximately a one in 200 year flow, so that would be a record at this gauge,” explained Patrick Boyle at the WSA.

There are many impacted people as a result of the flood, and not just those in Arborfield. The Ministry of Social Services is supporting 36 individuals from Estevan, Arborfield and Shoal Lake.

“There’s definitely more people out of their homes than who we are supporting, but we only have numbers of those that have registered with us”, maintained Deanna Valentine at the ministry.

The Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) has swung into action assisting 350 people affected by the flooding. That represents 15 communities and could be a person calling individually, for a family or from an RM or town.

Crews from both SaskPower and SaskEnergy are on the ground working with communities. Gas won’t be turned on in Arborfield until the town returns to normal. 190 customers have lost their service.

SaskPower reports that between 5,000 and 6,000 customers lost power for four-and-a-half hours Sunday as the torrential rain hit. The crown is now looking at power poles, sink holes, and other structures to ensure power remains and to limit outages.

The rain has impacted road access at Red Earth, Shoal Lake, and Cumberland House First Nations, although the impact has not been significant.

If you need help and are impacted by the flooding, you are asked to contact the PDAP response line at 1-866-632-4033.

 

Email smills@cjme.com

Twitter @smillsSK