Water, water, everywhere
This has been an incredible time for seeing the runoff forecast issued by the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority all of a sudden become a very solid (er liquid) reality.
Radville got there just ahead of Weyburn, and I took a drive down on April 12 to see the waters of Long Creek extending rather far and beyond its banks. On the way down, like between Weyburn and Trossachs, there were all kinds of fields that were completely flooded out, and a few grid roads that had water lapping at the edges, and some that were flowing over.
The snow seemed to go away then, but heading south on Highway 28, the countryside grew gradually heavier and heavier with snow piles in the fields, still waiting to melt and flow away. With all the saturated soils around, you can bet that water has to go somewhere - and that's what's causing all the overflowing creeks, streams and rivers.
Then the water kind of snuck up and hit Weyburn, causing the Government Road bridge to be closed off on Wednesday evening, which I found out when I first tried to cross the bridge, then I switched over to the Third Street bridge which was also blocked. The fire fighter there said the river had come up six inches in an hour (thus all the dike-building); they were also keeping traffic off Highway 39 through the city.
That afternoon, the previously-dry Railway Avenue all of a sudden had water back up from the storm sewer, and some three to four blocks had deep water flowing. In the 10 minutes or so I went out to see it, a car died right in the middle of it because the water was too high.
Also that day, there was water going over Highway 39 up by the Viterra terminal, as a part of a small river overflowing the grid road going off to the south opposite from the terminals' access road.
Anyway, that evening when I had to go pick up my youngest daughter from work, I almost couldn't get across Highway 39 to go get her; when I told the fire fighter I would have to take another daughter to work at Wal-Mart, he said the only to get there would be to go across on Queen Street.
This is all old news by this week, of course - but at the time it was happening, it was just incredible to see. There was one time in 1996 when they took the railings off the Government Road bridge, to push the ice under the bridge with a backhoe. This year, there was no ice, but a sheer large volume of water, as was predicted by the Watershed Authority - although I kind of think the water came in a lot higher and stronger than they thought it would.
