KAMSACK — Kamsack council declared a state of emergency on June 30 due to the impact of excess flooding and water.
The state of emergency allows the municipality to apply for Provincial Disaster Assistance Program funding. If approved, residents will be able to apply to receive funding for any uninsured losses.
“We’ve lost three streets and right now everything is holding,” said Mayor Beth Dix, “but if we get any more moisture that could change very quickly.”
Dix called the recent rainfall completely unprecedented.
“My mom’s lived here most of her life too. This has never happened in her lifetime.”
Town employees have been working nonstop with water and the sewers, said Town CAO Barry Hvidston.
“Our staff has been running long hours since Monday [June 29] night.”
Neighbouring communities, including the Town of Norquay, Village of Togo, Cote First Nation, RM of Cote, RM of Sliding Hills, RM of St. Philips and RM of Livingston have also declared local states of emergency.
Ralph Hilderman, reeve of the RM of Cote, said there has been “a lot of damage and devastation” in the municipality. Due to the washed out roads some people were stuck at their homes.
“The water flow has subsided substantially by now, of course the damage is done,” said Hilderman. “With that said, everything is just saturated so it wouldn’t take a lot more rain and we’d have water flowing again that’s for sure.”
“Zones 4 and 5 have probably been hit the hardest, and the others of course have damage also but not as severe as Divisions 4 and Divisions 5”
Terri Lang, Meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said that from June 28 to July 2 Yorkton got 71.5 mm and Swan River, Man. got 106.88 mm (the two closest weather stations to Kamsack). A generated map, using radar and model data, estimated that rainfall in the area between Yorkton and Swan River was likely over 150 mm, if not more in some pockets.
The average rainfall for Swan River for June is 84.8 mm, “so that means they got more than a month’s worth of rain in just a couple of days. So that kind of gives you the scale of how things were.”
“I don’t know what this is going to cost the Town,” said Hvidston, “but it’s going to be significant.”
“The saving grace for the Town of Kamsack is we’re built on a hill. If we were flat, like most communities, I don’t know what we’d be doing right now.”
