May 21, 2021 is a day that residents of Melville won’t soon forget.
It was one year ago this past Saturday (21st) an ice storm hit east and southeast Saskatchewan, and Melville was one of the hardest hit areas.
The storm caused wide-spread power outages and a big mess from broken tree branches and downed power lines.
Melville Mayor Walter Streelasky recalls getting into his vehicle to survey the damage.
“Just a hue of darkness over our City,” Streelasky remembers of the aftermath, “Then we started to see things like fallen trees, police moving very quickly down the streets.”
He added there was an advisory sent out saying travel was not advised.
Streelasky said while he was talking to some residents that day, there was a sense of bewilderment. “This happened in Melville, in our community, in May? This shouldn’t be happening,” he said. “And I think that took a while for all of us to come up with the realization that yes, this can happen during the month of May and perhaps beyond that.”
And with the recent rain and low temperatures, Streelasky noted it brought back memories to that day.
“You just kind of wonder ‘are we due for a repeat?’ It didn’t happen but it certainly was on our minds.” he said.
At it’s peak, there were 48 SaskPower employees and 6 Vegetation Management crews dispatched to the Melville area to help with the cleanup. Approximately 56-thousand 987 SaskPower customers in east and southeast Saskatchewan were affected by the ice storm.
SaskPower crews at one point were having difficulties contacting customers who were away on the long weekend to get consent to make temporary repairs to equipment on the person’s property.
The Rail City spent between $1.2 and 1.3-million on the response and cleanup, and applied for funding through the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) not long after the storm, recovering approximately $835-thousand. Streelasky says one year later, they’re still cleaning up and are doing the best they can to address any remaining branches and stumps
