Learning from the latest flood to help deal with future river issues

If it felt as though the river was higher this time around than previous flood events, you are correct. In speaking with the Director of Community Safety with the Town of Whitecourt Doug Tymchyshyn late last week, he revealed that this most recent flood was over and above. “To our knowledge, we are currently led to believe by Alberta Environment, that this was the highest level we’ve seen to date coming through Whitecourt since they’ve been recording the levels.” He said that the water levels hit nearly 2000 cubic metres per second through the gauge at Windfall. “They told me that it has never been up that close before. We were slightly shy of 2000. It was 1989 cubic metres per second at the highest point.”

It is not a big surprise to know that recent rainfalls were the culprit. Tymchyshyn said the ground just could not handle it. “We’ve had so much moisture and rain that the ground is so saturated. When we get rain, it is strictly going into the rivers because it cannot soak into the ground. Typically, some would soak into the ground, and some would flow into the river so you would not see such a significant event, but in this case, we’ve had so much that it just goes into the river every time.”

Now that the emergency has passed, the Town of Whitecourt directors and staff held a meeting to put everything together. “You always want to learn and do better next time.” He said that one topic that came up in their debrief concerned the evacuation notice that they put out. “I think what we’re going to be looking at is building standard templates to enhance the notices.” Tymchyshyn said that the idea is to put together all the relevant information ahead of time so that they would only need to fill in the data for each specific event that is occurring.

As for the evacuation, he said that it went well. “There were some areas of the Sagitawah RV Park & Campground that flooded that we were not expecting to flood as quickly as they did. Fortunately, the entire flooding at the campground was not extremely severe; it was pretty minor. So, that helped. We are going to be looking at maybe working with the campground operator a little earlier in advance just so that people can be more prepared, and recognize that when we call for an evacuation, to be ready to go.”

One of the most significant improvements to their Emergency Management Plan will be the ability to visualize the flooding based on the reports of river levels upstream. “We always struggle in Whitecourt because, when it comes to river levels and flows, we don’t have a gauge here. The River Forecast Centre has gauges up on Windfall, on the Athabasca, and there are also two gauges on the McLeod.” He said that because Whitecourt does not have a gauge, they are left having to interpret the data provided to guestimate how high the water will be once it hits the community. This time, they were able to get their hands on pictures of the floodwaters, and they can see what the flow and levels were of the rivers at the exact moment the image was taken. “This is going to be helpful in the future. These pictures will show us what the flooding looks like at each level.”

Some way wonder if more can be done along the riverbanks to mitigate future flooding events, but Tymchyshyn said that it is not as easy as it seems. “Two years ago, we had that spring ice jamming that damaged some of our fish habitats along the riverbanks downstream from Whitecourt. Well, we are still working with the Department of Fisheries & Oceans to get a solution so we can repair the damage that was done.” That is a two-year-long process at this point, with no specific completion date in sight. “It takes quite a bit of time for all those different approvals before you can do any work on the riverbank,” he explained. “There isn’t much more we can do. The river spurs were probably the most significant thing we could have done to enhance the riverbanks here.”

He added that the only other potential thing that could be done in the future is the use of temporary diversion dams. “If you understand or know where the flooding is going to be, particularly if public safety is at risk, then you can use the dams to try and keep the water in the river instead of up over the banks.” The Town of Whitecourt has just under half a kilometre of temporary diversion dams currently, and Tymchyshyn said they could deploy those if needed. He said they did not use them this time because when they looked at the areas they would protect, the better solution was to evacuate the Sagitawah RV Park & Campground.

“The rest of the flooding wasn’t a significant risk to public safety. The golf course did flood, and it did have an impact on their operations, but it did not impact public safety, directly.” Tymchyshyn said that administration is in the final stages of completing their Flood Mitigation Plan. Once adopted by council, it will give some direction, on both permanent and temporary structures, to the town, and property owners, on what they can do to help mitigate the flood impact to their property. It is expected to be completed and presented to council this fall or early winter with hopes to start implementing the plans in 2021. “I would really like to commend everyone involved in dealing with this event as it was a joint effort,” said Tymchyshyn. “Long hours were put in by everyone from the RV Park owners, to the town staff and the RCMP concerning evacuation, safety and managing the flood.”