Dozens of residents in the RM of Stuartburn have now been evacuated from their homes as rising water levels threaten to swallow entire communities.
Early Tuesday night, the municipality advised vulnerable homeowners living in the Arbakka region to get out while they still had access to roads. Most Arbakka homes are expected to be okay, but Reeve David Kiansky says flooding has already made service to that community nearly impossible.
As floodwaters quickly exceed 2002 levels, Kiansky says emergency culvert installations and last-ditch sandbagging efforts are all that are preventing vital roadways from being totally submerged across his RM.
“It’s a panic,” he says. “All our land is underwater. If you flew over you would see one big lake. Lake Stuartburn you could call it.”
The rainstorm last weekend dropped as many as ten inches in some parts of Stuartburn. When combined with the 15 to 18 inches that were leftover in low spots from the flooding last fall, Kiansky says disaster was inevitable.
“There was no chance for any of this rain to soak into the ground, it’s just coming over the land like one tsunami… it’s horrible.”
He says the entire RM is now watching in fear as a swell in the Rat River fast approaches an essential bridge on PR 302 near Zhoda. If that bridge becomes impassable, one of Stuartburn’s only remaining exits will be lost.
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