Piper Creek continued to flow over 43rd Street in Red Deer near Rotary Park and the road remained closed on Tuesday afternoon.
The city has reinforced some of the creek bank behind both Port O’Call Safeway and Red Deer Lodge with sandbags.
The city closed 43rd Street, between Spruce Drive and 49th Avenue, on Monday morning.
Police have been at the park because too many people stopping to look was causing traffic problems.
“It doesn’t appear to have caused any damage at this point. If we get sustained flow for any length of time, we could have some erosion of 43rd Street embankments,” said Gordon Elworthy, engineering planning superintendent for public works, on Tuesday.
Rotary Park washrooms, parking lot and picnic shelter are closed until further notice. Trail users should use caution in the area.
“The culverts at 43rd often have problems in the spring time with ice jamming inside them.”
He said it’s good to have the park located there to take the overland flow of water from the creek.
Elworthy said the areas behind Safeway and Red Deer Lodge are two low spots that always seem to flood in the spring. Sandbags were only needed in one spot behind Safeway but the city is preparing more sandbags just in case.
He said the water level is high but stable for now. How much higher it rises depends on the weather.
“We’ve got Mother Nature trying to warm things up and there’s still a lot of snowpack outside the city that’s flowing in. If it stays cool, we could be looking at the flows dropping.”
For more information on the city’s parks, visit www.reddeer.ca/parks.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com