Floods swamp Alberta
CALGARY, Alberta — At least three people were killed by floodwaters that devastated much of southern Alberta, leading authorities to evacuate the western Canadian city of Calgary’s entire downtown. Inside the city’s hockey arena, the waters reached as high as the 10th row.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday called the level of flooding “stunning” and said officials don’t know yet if it will get worse, but said the water has peaked and stabilized and noted that the weather has improved.
Overflowing rivers washed out roads and bridges, soaked homes and turned streets into dirt-brown waterways around southern Alberta. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Patricia Neely told reporters three were dead and two bodies were recovered. The two bodies recovered are two men who had been seen floating lifeless on Thursday, she said.
Harper, a Calgary resident, said he never imagined there would be a flood of this magnitude in this part of Canada.
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the water levels have reached 5a peak, but have not declined.
Twenty-five neighborhoods in the city, with an estimated 75,000 residents, were evacuated due to floodwaters in Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford said Medicine Hat, east of Calgary, was under a mandatory evacuation order affecting 10,000 residents. The premier warned that communities downstream had not yet felt the full force of the floodwaters.
About 350,000 people work in downtown Calgary on a typical day. However, officials said very few people need to be moved out, since many heeded warnings and did not go to work Friday.
A spokesman for Canada’s defense minister said 1,300 soldiers from a base in Edmonton were being deployed to the flood zone.
It had been a rainy week throughout much of Alberta, but on Thursday the Bow River Basin was battered with up to four inches of rain.
