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Flooding Threatens More Sask. Communities:16 Declare Emergencies

Posted on: Sunday, 22 April 2007, 19:09 CDT

By JENNIFER GRAHAM

SASKATOON (CP) - With floodwaters rising in lakes and rivers, more communities east and north of Saskatoon have declared states of emergency, provincial government officials said Saturday.

A total of 16 communities around the province are in emergency situations, which gives them more powers to restrict access to roads and to take action to preserve roads and bridges, said Colin King, a spokesman for the provincial government's Public Safety Department.

"It also sends a message that this is a very serious situation," he said.

The town of Watson, and the rural municipalities of Lakeside, Porcupine and Torch River are among the latest communities to declare states of emergency.

Eight other communities who haven't made the declaration, but who have had some localized flooding, are also being watched closely, King said.

In the tiny town of Rosthern, just north of Saskatoon, Mayor Doug Knoll said that the emergency declared earlier this week would remain in effect for another five days.

What was a bubbling creek in Rosthern spilled its banks, washing out roads, forcing the closure of a sewage lift station, threatening homes and swamping a park.

"You could start a ferry business out here and probably do quite well," Knoll said Saturday as he stood next to the fast flowing water.

"This has been going on now for about three, four days and the watershed authority people tell us that we can expect that this flow will probably be like this for another five, seven days," said Knoll.

One of those watching the water with a weary eye was Don Henschel, whose property resembled a lake.

It was only with help from many of the town's 1,500 residents that Henschel was able to save his home from the cold, muddy water. They pitched in to fill sandbags and when the water seeped through those, they built a dike out of clay.

"We were able to hold the water back. I do have a bit of flood damage, but it's not as bad as it could have been," said Henschel.

"I've lived here all my life and I've never seen this," added Henschel, a 40-year resident of the town.

Henschel was one of the lucky ones who was able to stay in his home.

A few of the 800 people living on the Yellow Quill First Nation east of Saskatoon were forced to evacuate Saturday as water seeped into their homes.

King said they're seeing some of the highest waterflows in the last 50 years in the headwaters of creeks and rivers that flow into nearby Nut Lake.

On Friday, flooding forced more than 600 people to be evacuated from the Red Earth First Nation, about 270 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

They huddled in hotels in Saskatoon and Prince Albert and in a community centre in Saskatoon, where they bedded down on cots and were served food and hot coffee.

While Red Earth resident Hendrick Head crammed into a Saskatoon hotel room with his wife and four children, his thoughts were focused on what was happening at home.

"It's kind of frustrating right now, not knowing when we can go back," he said Saturday.

Head is worried about his home because he didn't get a chance to sandbag it before he left, and doesn't know whether water has crept inside.

But Richard Kent, a spokesman for the Prince Albert Grand Counsel, had some good news on that front.

About 21 homes have had some water entering their basements and crawl spaces in the northern part of the large aboriginal community, but sump pumps are pumping out water as soon as it seeps into the affected homes.

Four thousand sandbags have been filled to create a dike built around the community but there are still some leaky spots, Kent said.

"In some places they're getting close to not being able to contain the water, but they're being immediately identified and sandbagged," he said.

While waters there are expected to peak sometime this weekend, Kent said officials are not sure when the people of the reserve will be given the all-clear to go home.

Cabin owners in east-central and northwestern areas of Saskatchewan have also been told to get their valuables out as lake levels in those areas rise.

At Fishing Lake, about 300 cabins are threatened by flooding and residents are being encouraged to salvage their possessions and leave the area in case of flooding.

Forty-eight cabins on Waldsea Lake have also had some water damage from rising lake levels.

Source: Canadian Press

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