LACOMBE — Lacombe has fingers crossed that rain holds off while cleanup continues after flooding in the city on Monday.
Lacombe Mayor Steve Christie said parts of the city had 50 mm of rain in just under an hour. That backed up the storm water system, causing localized flooding in low-lying areas including some basements.
“When you get that kind of water in that short of time, it’s going to back up your system,” Christie said on Tuesday.
Resident Murray Shaw had about 45 cm (one and a half feet) of water collect in his finished basement.
“We were home and we still couldn’t do anything about it. At one point, I had three sump pumps going down here last night,” said Shaw after stripping the basement’s carpet and vacuuming up water late Tuesday morning.
“By 9 p.m. last night, we had about 16 inches. It was just to the bottom of the electrical outlets.”
He said restoration companies were busy so he worked on clearing his basement on the northeast end of Lacombe.
The water-logged couch and chair were so heavy from the water he couldn’t remove them himself.
By late Tuesday afternoon, there was no count available on the number of basements that flooded because of the storm.
Rob Holoboff, who lives beside Shaw, had so far removed the baseboards and doors from his basement.
“Last night it smelled horrible. If you put your finger an inch under the water level, you couldn’t see your finger,” said Holoboff, who returned home about 7 p.m. on Monday and also had about 45 cm of water from the sewer system in his basement.
“I grabbed hoses and duct tape and starting pumping it out.”
He already talked to his insurance company, which recommended he throw everything out due to water contamination. He estimated the cost of damage to be about $20,000.
Environment Canada meteorologist David Wray said rainfall was measured at 25 mm at one spot in Lacombe, but the amount varied significantly throughout the city.
Monday’s storm cells were slow moving, had a lot of moisture, continued to build and released rain over a very short period of time, he said.
“It’s like having one of these huge storms sit over for a few hours and let all the rain out in one spot. When you’ve got that much rain, it doesn’t soak up into the ground. It can’t. It’s coming down so fast. It seeks out low-lying areas, which unfortunately are people’s basements,” Wray said.
“I don’t think the west side of Lacombe got as much rain as the east side. It was such a localized, concentrated storm,” Christie said.
Lacombe Police Service acting Sgt. Rick Kohut said at different times about seven roads were closed for short periods.
“We had people going through the floods. They’d go too fast and their engines were stalling so then we had cars blocking roads as well, which became a real problem,” Kohut said.
The city pumped water into Wolf Creek to alleviate pressure on the storm system. Workers also pumped out storm water ponds on Tuesday to prepare for more rain in the forecast.
Last July, some homes were flooded when Lacombe was hit with over 100 mm of rain in about two days. Christie said it’s concerning that flooding is occurring more often, but the city’s storm water system is working as it should.
“The system performed. It just got backed up for that period of time.”
The west-end of Cranna Trail remained closed on Tuesday due to the flooding.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com