In 2011, a “500year flood” struck the Souris Valley. Saturated soil from the year before, combined with a heavy spring runoff, were met with two inches of rain each Monday for nearly two months. The result was a total inundation of the Souris River floodplain just south of Estevan.
With the Rafferty and Boundary dams opening their floodgates, this water would surround and inundate homes in the valley, cut off the water treatment plant from land access and eventually destroy substantial portions of Roche Percee and Minot, North Dakota.
A mobile home park in the valley was evacuated and narrowly escaped major flooding.
Standing atop the valley ridge, we looked upon the floodwaters covering this valley while personal watercraft were used to get people across Highway No. 18 to access the Boundary Dam Power Station. Immediately south of the evacuated mobile home park, there was nothing but water.
And it is in this area that the City of Estevan a few years later approved the development of another mobile home park, one that is planned to be home to up to 440 new mobile homes. It was built across the highway at SRI Homes Inc. (The mobile home factory itself saw substantial portions of its property flooding in 2011.)
“The Ridge” is a 56.1 acre development. Phase 1, which appears near completion, is slated for 85 lots, according to a story I wrote in September 2013.
Around that time I challenged the then-city manager, Jim Puffalt, on this. Should the city be allowing construction on a flood plain? Isn’t that the city’s responsibility?
Puffalt, who is now curiously the city manager of North Battleford, assured me that the developers would have drainage in hand.
I pointed out that entire area was under water just a couple years before. He was unconcerned.
Observing the dirt work at this site was interesting to say the least. As a trained excavator operator, I would describe it as a “soup hole,” from what I saw every time I drove by or when I drove up to the site.
The mobile homes, which are all installed on screw piles, are somewhat elevated above the land. In other words, water can pass right under the mobile homes, like a house on stilts in a hurricane zone. There’s a substantial slope down from the trailers to the road. Oh, there’s drainage alright.
All the water runs to the road and you end up with a waist-deep river. The tail end of your vehicle, if parked on the ramp-like parking spaces, is mostly likely going to end up under water.
And the photos this morning on cbc.ca/sask/ are showing just that, when, for the second time this year, The Ridge flooded.
A heavy rain earlier this year saw the road in The Ridge become a river. And then the rain stopped. Estevan had almost no rain since spring. My lawn, which I did not water this year, was all but dead.
Then on September 5, it rained – and rained – and rained some more. I was out of town doing a photo shoot when my wife started sending me panicked pictures of water covering our lawn and starting to work its way into our garage. Thankfully it stopped there and the house was spared. Estevan got something like five-and-a-half inches of rain in 24 hours, a whole summers’ worth in a day.
The Ridge made news, again, for flooding.
This was in no way unexpected. The city allowed a developer to build on a floodplain. What did anyone expect?
Let me clarify, the river did not spill its banks in this case. This was due to rain. But they call it a floodplain for a reason.
The developer should never have sought to build there. It most definitely should not develop subsequent phases, even closer to the river, and thus downslope from the existing phase already built. Water from Phase 1 will fl ow into Phase 2. And what investor is going to buy a mobile home for a revenue property in an area that’s flooded twice in a year?
But the buck stops with the city. Anyone who dealt with the 2011 flooding should have known building in the valley is a fool’s errand, not only putting property at risk, but possibly lives. That area should have been left open, forever.
Battleford knows this. Its floodplain is covered with ball diamonds, things that will not be bothered by a little bit of water. Estevan should have learned from 2011.
Building on a floodplain is inviting disaster.
