Calgary flooding
 

I hope everyone in the south is alright. I am not a news reader so came to know about it late. Being from a flood prone country, I know how painful it is to cope up with floods.

I wish all the people the best and hope this dreadful weather will soon be over.

There is huge devastation in Bragg Creek, High River, Banff and Canmore.

All that water in Banff and Canmore has to come through Calgary sooner or later. I don't think we've seen even the worst of it yet. It's not raining here in the city but it's been getting steadily worse all day upstream.

This is way worse than 2005, and there was significant damage to the city back then.

What a sad terrible day for so many.

I've heard they are shutting memorial drive down overnight as they are expecting the water to crest through the city?

Hard to imagine the destruction when I'm sitting in my office looking out the window and see blue skies.....

Hope everyone is safe!

Yah :( But the good thing is there's good service to take care of it as quickly as possible.

Like I said, I am from a very flood prone country and I have suffered the worst. I know how terrified people can be, especially if they are not used to such incident at regular basis. Hope everything gets well soon.

Hard to believe considering the weather is kind of nice where I am, don't think I'll be heading to the city anytime soon. Hope everyone in the zones are come out OK and the power cuts don't destroy any ones tanks.

Some good pics here
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23yycflood&src=hash

Talked to friends and family today in Canmore and it's bad. A few of them have been evacuated and are staying with other friends. One of our friends back yard is gone and the Cougar Creek was only a few feet from the house. They're not sure if it's there still :(
And my wife's cousin owns a little ranch beside the rail tracks that they do horse back rides and such and it's 2' under water. They had to move all their horses 2X as the water just kept rising.

Holy crap :O

Sorry for being ignorant but where is the upstream coming from? I thought Calgary and the adjacent areas are situated in the highest point in whole Alberta.

Cougar creek in Canmore comes straight out of one of the mountain valleys, and joins the Bow River right in Canmore. With all that rain and the resulting melt of snow pack filled and overflowed the creek bed which is pretty much dry most of the year. That right now is creating most of the damage there I believe.
I lived there 20 years and every year that creek floods and screws up the railway and bridge that goes over it. Usually they are able to get some machinery in there and clear debris before it damages anything but I guess this year was just too much.

Sorry to hear this!! So terrible. I've grown up here and I've never seen anything like this. YEs we get bad storms, but so many areas affected.....I hope your friends and family are somewhere safe and that the worst is over. Somehow I don't think it is with more rain in the forecast....:sad:

Thanks. We've been in touch with everyone and everyone's safe. Here's a recent aerial pic of the highway where cougar creek used to run under it.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...&type=1&ref=nf

And here's a vid, you can actually see my buddy's place in it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xjqnfRcZkg

Oh hey Tony, remember when we road our bikes through Carburn Park the other day? Well, I'm sorry to report that Carburn Park isn't there anymore :cry:

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5a271f96.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps541008ee.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps225a9c62.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4b903bbd.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psaf1339c6.jpg

Okay, I may be exaggerating a little bit but seriously, half of Carburn is gone and they evacuated the entire park. Those three lakes that were in the pond are now a part of the river :neutral:

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psaf1339c6.jpg

took my bike out to sus it out but didn't get far..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps041c35ab.jpg

Expecting them to evacuate Riverbend possibly.. :cry:

Water from the rivers on the east side of the continental divide (basically the divide follows the BC/Alberta border in the southern half of the province) all flows easterly. Unfortunately Canmore, Calgary, etc have the water flowing towards the communities and not away from them regardless of sea elevation. My wife's family all live in Calgary but luckily none are near the evacuation areas.

Thanks for the explanation :)

I hope this ordeal gets dealt with quickly and everyone affected can return to their home. Something very unexpected for Calgary.

The 2005 floods seem minor compared to that. In one picture it looked like the river rose about 2 m in the last two days.

I've lived beside the river in this community for over 30 years and I've seen the river crest quite a few times. This is definitely the worst it has ever been!

perhaps I should re think my move to okotoks

wish everyone the best in affected areas

I have friends in okotoks who have friends from high river staying with them.

Kien that's brutal.. Yeah, this is the worst I've ever seen. Good luck.

Kien and I have both been evacuated. Hoping they can avoid cutting power.

Greg isn't even in town so hopefully his house is ok (in deer run with me)

horrible, I work downtown near elbow and water running through pretty fast and high. Office shut down tomorrow because of flooding

Ahh man, this sucks! Do you have time to to move anything? I'm on the other end of the city but if anyone needs to move livestock, my tank is available. And if you need a place to stay, my doors are open, pets welcome!

I'm actually in deer ridge but we called 311 and the operator said we were included with deer run. It looks like nobody else has left deer ridge ( we are higher up so no flood risk I don't think) but I will drive back around 3am to see if in fact my area was forced to leave. Check he power too. Is it legal to enter an evacuated area to run a generator ?

Call 311 and ask. I would think probably so as they are going to protect the areas from looters and those who might take advantage of the situation.

Hopefully there is no loss of power. Sounds like they will be closing bridges too... they already closed a bunch of connections to deerfoot...if they close calf rope bridge then I'm staying home tomorrow!

OMG, just watching this on the news now. Hope all you Calgarian reefers are not flooded out of your homes or lose power.

Anthony

Just received an email from the principal at my son's school explaining that ALL CBE schools will be closed tomorrow. WOW!!!

Public and catholic is what I heard.

Kien and Greg if you're reading this I drove past both your places this morning around 2:30am and you both still had power.

Insane only going to get worse too .......on a positive note all my fish are swimming happy bewtween my backyard and about 4 sblocks down the street

Geeze, just watching some news clips of Calgary, High River, Canmore.
Our thoughts are with all you guys over there.

The family and I have evacuated and are safe at my sister's place. However, they have cut the power in my evacuated community.. FRAK!!

I was going to drive home to to check on the tank but they are still evacuating my community and officials say egress only, no inbound traffic allowed. :cry:

Damn! Sorry to hear man. No chance to setup a generator before you left?

Let me entertain all of you out of towners on my drive into work;

*Someone flipped there mini van and it is currently hanging OVER the railings of Glenmore.
*The full Lafarge plant is under water, including what looks like 30 cars/trucks.
*The off ramp to Deerfoot north bound is UNDER water, had to offroad in my civic to get into the highway.
*The Inglewood golf course is now the Inglewood River.
*I'm physically scared driving over the Caffrope bridge.

All I can say is best of luck to those that are being effected, this is serious.

Im crossing my fingers for you guys... Good luck!

My blessing goes out to all you guys who are effected by the flood.

~Tony

I was suppose to play there in the next few weeks... don't think I'll be playing there anytime soon now.

I have a fresh batch of about 20 gallons of water change water ready to go if it can help someone close to deer ridge. I'm still at risk to lose power myself but I can give the water or house fish and corals for as long as I have power.

Good luck Brett and Kien.. Let me know of I can help out somehow.

Interesting....75,000-100,000 people evacuated in Calgary, city has capacity to take in 2,500 people in shelters, however they have only serviced about 1600. The rest are with family, friends and even strangers who have opened their doors! What an amazing community we live in!!

I too have salt water mixed, 30 gls good to go, plus can make up another 30 if needed!

My drive to work went from 64th Ave down deerfoot to pagan. At 6:45am the river was maybe 5-10 feet away from the road. Inglewood golf course is more like the Inglewood islands right now all you can see are a few green "bumps" poking out of the water but I dont think thats gonna last long.

So I turned around and went back the shop...to find out we are all on call with all services vans loaded and ready to go. (Electricians so we know our downtown customers will be calling once this clears up)