The two rivers that converge on the western Canadian city of Calgary were receding Saturday after floods devastated much of southern Alberta province, causing at least three deaths and forcing thousands to evacuate.
Authorities evacuated Calgary’s entire downtown as the flooding hit some of the city’s iconic structures hard. The Saddledome, home to the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames, was flooded up to the 10th row, leaving the dressing rooms submerged.
Water lapped at the roof of the chuckwagon barns at the grounds of the Calgary Stampede, which is scheduled to start in two weeks. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi has said the city will do everything it can to make sure that the world-renowned rodeo and festival goes ahead.
Bruce Burrell, director of the city’s emergency management agency, said Saturday they were seeing improvements in the rivers. Dan Limacher, director of water services for the city, said the Elbow river is expected to recede by about 60 percent over the next two days, while the larger Bow river will recede by about 25 percent.
The improving conditions Saturday morning prompted Calgary’s mayor to tweet: “It’s morning in Calgary! Sunny, water levels are down, and our spirit remains strong. We’re not out of this, but maybe have turned corner.”
However, Nenshi said later Saturday that while the city had turned a corner, there was still a state of emergency in effect.
“Flows on Elbow and Bow (rivers) are dropping slowly. We do believe the peak has passed on the Elbow. However, water levels are still four times higher than 2005 flood levels,” he said during a press conference.
Overflowing rivers on Thursday and Friday washed out roads and bridges, soaked homes and turned streets into dirt-brown waterways around southern Alberta.
The town of High River, southwest of Calgary, was one of the hardest-hit areas and remained under a mandatory evacuation order. Police said they had recovered three bodies there.
Up to half the resisdents of the town of 13,000 experienced flooding in their homes. Police cut off access to most of the town and helicopters were circling overhead. Abandoned cars lay submerged in water, while backhoes workedto push water back from houses.
Ed Mailhot, a volunteer in High River, was working to build a database of registered evacuees and those who are looking for them. Cellphone service was not restored until late Friday.
“There are a lot of loved ones out there that people can’t find, or they don’t know where they are,” he said. “It’s still chaos.”
Alberta Premier Alison Redford has warned that communities downstream of Calgary have not yet felt the full force of the floodwaters. Medicine Hat was under a mandatory evacuation order affecting 10,000 residents.
About 1,500 people in Calgary went to emergency shelters during the flooding, while the rest of those evacuated found shelter with family or friends, Nenshi said. Schools and courts were closed Friday. Transit service in the city’s core was shut down.
Calgary’s mayor said the downtown area remained off limits and employers will have to make arrangements to have staff work remotely until at least the middle of the week.
Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics, is the center of Canada’s oil industry.
About 350,000 people work in downtown Calgary on a typical day. However, officials said very few people had to be moved out, since many heeded warnings and did not go to work Friday.
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