Ice jams caused most of the flood problems in Moose Jaw this year

The wide spread destruction, the valley that looked like a lake and the clean up that followed.  This past spring was a devastating time for many people in Saskatchewan as wide spread flooding hit the province, including Moose Jaw's Wakamow Valley.

We're counting down the Top 5 Local News Stories of the Year and the flooding makes the list at #2. It was a story that lead the news for weeks as flooding started slow then quickly escalated into a situation where residents of the valley had to be evacuated.  The water poured over the sides of the Moose Jaw River and had rescue teams on high alert.

One property that suffered substantial damage after the first wave of flooding was the Deer Ridge Golf Course that saw that water rise up by at least five feet, covering a number of the greens to the amazement of Doug Corrin. "I've never, in the 10 years that I've been down here, seen water flowing like this."

But the next day, it was even worse as ice jams upstream let loose and crashed into the CPR Dam followed by the Deer Ridge Bridge, sending scraps of lumber and steel into the river. In the days and weeks that followed, the damage was revealed as the water levels dropped.  Debris was left scattered along the banks of the river, lawns and gardens were destroyed and one of the bridges in Wakamow suffered damage to its foundation after being hit by a massive chunk of ice.

While it took weeks for things to return to normal, some of the damage to the river valley is still being dealt with. The golf course will have a lot of repairs to make in the spring and Wakamow is still working on some of their problems.

As bad as the flooding was, it wasn't the worst on record according to the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority. It did come awfully close though.  John Fahlman took part of the summer to crunch the numbers and then looked through the books to see where this year's flooding compared to past incidents.

"You might remember 1997 and the Moose Jaw River was at 160 cubic metres per second and this year we got to 210cms. The flood of record was 360cms in 1974 so we were halfway between the flood of '97 and '74, so the second highest on record."

The flooding across the province caused wide spread damage and some of that damage is still being reported as residents apply for disaster funding through the provincial government. Premier Brad Wall even said the flooding this year put a lot of pressure on their finances since they were determined to try and help those affected.

 

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