"Humpty fell off the wall. We are trying to put him back together now."
That was how Kelly Lafrentz, the reeve of the RM of Estevan, described the monumental task that is ahead for not only his organization but for many others in the southeast.
With flood waters in the area finally begin to recede, groups such as the RM and City of Estevan are now beginning to piece together an idea of how much damage has been done and how much it will cost to fix it. Although the water will need to come down even further before a full assessment can be made, the RM of Estevan is expecting its tab to be well over $1 million.
"The damage to houses is one area (to be assessed), to the municipality is the second area," said RM administrator Greg Hoffort. "The first thing that has to happen is provincial building officials will be coming in to determine what is, and isn't, salvageable from the property owners' perspective and following that they send the appraisers in to appraise the damage. That has not been done in the RM to this point and that has to be done before those damages can be determined.
"From a municipal road perspective, the Provincial Disaster Assistance Plan officials have not been here to tour with us yet. That will happen shortly. Council met June 29 and set out a priority list to assess the damage in each of the six divisions. As far as assessing the absolute damages, we don't have a handle on that yet."
"Without knowing a lot of stuff, I think we are going to be on the high side of $1 million just in initial estimations on what we have seen as the water goes down and what we've had to do to fix some of those roads," Lafrentz said. "We've probably spent, now, in the neighbourhood of $150,000 just on extra gravel to keep roads open."
Along with assessing damage, Hoffort said the RM is also focused on getting a number of the 28 roads in the RM that have water on them back to a drivable condition. He noted one of their top concerns was the Rafferty Dam road which they successfully repaired last week.
"We made a priority list based on what roads need to get back into service the soonest," said Hoffort who noted their deductible under PDAP will cost the RM $250,000. "Though there are 28 roads with water on them, some of them are more serious than others because they can actually water lock a resident. Other ones are more of an inconvenience in making people drive a few extra miles so they are not quite as urgent. It's still soon on a lot because though the water is down to 160 cubic metres a second, that is still too high for a few of our bridges. They will be a priority because they cut the south from the north off so those are going to be a priority for us."
Lafrentz noted the road to the water treatment plant was reopened Thursday. He added the Hitchcock grid road that runs west of Highway 47 is another priority and they are waiting on delivery of a pump before they can get to work.
"Another is in the southwest corner of the RM where we have a couple of residents who are driving through a fair bit of water to get to and from their house," Lafrentz said. "Hopefully we will have that back open by the weekend."
"We have several key roads that basically go right across the majority, whether it is east to west or north to south and those are the absolute focus because if you can get those back in shape, it gives emergency services and the residents the quickest access."
Another ongoing concern for the RM is Woodlawn Regional Park. Hoffort said it appears the camping season at the main park will be a write-off.
"The water has got to go a long ways down. Even at 160 it has to get down to that 50-55 range," he said. "Then there is a major cleanup. I would expect if they can get that river down in the next few weeks there might be some spots salvageable by the end of the year. But we are preparing for it to not open."
Hoffort noted the new campground at Boundary Dam remains open and has been very helpful in housing some of the people who had seasonal sites at Woodlawn as well as some residents of the RM who were displaced by the flooding.
Although their bill will not be as steep as the RM's, the flood has also had a significant impact on the City of Estevan.
Much like the RM, the City is still in wait and see mode, but City manager Jim Puffalt expects the cost will be in the six-figure range.
"There are more costs than maybe even originally thought," Puffalt said. "We are still looking at Fourth Avenue, Woodlawn Avenue south - we can't even inspect Woodlawn Avenue south to see if there is anything left there. There is all the firefighter costs, staffing costs there are lots of things to consider but we are working on it."
Fourth Avenue is a particular concern for the City Puffalt noted. The road was in treacherous shape already but was damaged further by flood waters and the steady flow of flood watchers. Puffalt said the two likely options for the road are a complete rebuild or closing it permanently.
The City will also be looking to see if other costs such as berm work south of the city to prevent any future floods will be covered as well as lost revenue at the Souris Valley Aquatic and Leisure Centre when it was closed for three days to house evacuees.
"We would do it always to look after our neighbours but if that is something we can claim for, we will, because we were down for three days," he said. "We also bought a Zodiac (boat) so that is something else we have to look at."
