After a week that has tested the nerves, will and patience of many in the area, flood waters along the Souris River are beginning to recede.
The Saskatchewan Watershed Authority announced Monday it has lowered the outflow of water from the Boundary Dam Reservoir to 20 cubic metres per second. Combined with the outlow from the Rafferty Dam Reservoir, roughly 150 m3/s are flowing into the Souris, which is down significantly from the peak of 211 m3/s on Thursday.
"The message around Boundary and Rafferty is that inflows are matching outflows," said John Fahlman of the SWA. "We are going to stay (at 150 m3/s) for the next few days for sure to see how inflows drop off. We are in a bit of unknown territory here because of the spring and then the snow and the rain. We need to see how fast the inflows decrease before we drop releases there.
"Also, we need to create some storage in those reservoirs, Rafferty in particular, in case another rainfall comes, so we'll monitor that and reduce it as we see fit."
Although the flows have dropped, Fahlman cautioned it will be awhile before there is a noticeable drop in water levels.
"We are making our plan going forward here," he said. "We really need to see how quick those inflows are going to drop off or if they are going to be really flat for a long time. If that is the case, it is that much harder to create the reservoir storage for another flood event.
"The long term goal here is to get everything down to a level that everyone can live with and get those reservoirs back to their full levels. We are looking at a number of months before we even get down to full. That doesn't mean we are going to leave them this high for that long. What we want to do is get it down to 50 or 60 m3/s as soon as we can, but we need to do some work on figuring out when that is and leave it at that level until the reservoir drains down again."
Although the recession will be a gradual one, every little bit will likely be welcomed by the waterlogged property owners along the Souris.
It has been a trying week for many as the flows reached their peak last Wednesday, making an already tough situation even tougher. A number of homeowners in the RM of Estevan were placed on evacuation notice and seven families were eventually forced from their residences.
The hardest hit areas continue to be Woodlawn Park and homeowners adjacent to the park as well as other residences further downstream including those in the area south of where the Estevan Generating Station was located.
The five homeowners in that area have been working frantically to beat back the water with varying degrees of success. Lauren Lacoste, who lives in the area, said he had knee-high water in his basement and has been pumping from his home for the better part of a month.
Lacoste admitted the past few days have been stressful ones and said there were times he felt like walking away. However he credited the help of workers dispatched to the scene by the Ministry of Corrections, Public Safety and Policing with helping them get through their toughest times.
"They saved our life. We were ready to leave they came here and talked us into putting up these things," Lacoste said referring to the temporary sand-filled dikes that were constructed by a hotshot team from the Office of the Fire Commissioner.
Duane McKay, who is the province's fire commissioner and director of emergency response, said many of their forest fire teams were deployed to the southeast to assist with such tasks as building temporary dikes and fill sandbags.
"We have six wildfire crews and they are made up five people each. And then we have two hotshot crews of eight," McKay said. "For the last week or so, the majority of those have been working down in those areas but we have had to deploy up into Last Mountain Lake and into the Qu'Appelle region."
Residents of Roche Percee have also been on alert. The Souris swelled enough in that area to cover the village's main bridge for a period but it appears that no homes suffered significant damage.
"We got lucky," said Roche Percee resident Al Stead. "We had lots of dike left, it was just maintaining them."
The City of Estevan was also an interested party with concerns that the rising river might impact the Willow Park Greens mobile home park. Although the water never got to that level city clerk Lyndon Stachoski credited the City's emergency measures team for their work in the past week and said Estevan was well prepared for any problems.
With the water receding, the next step will be assessing how much damage the flood caused. RM of Estevan administrator Greg Hoffort said they are hopeful the worst is behind them and they are now in wait and see mode.
"We have to wait until they get the flows down more so we can get in there and start assessing the damages and doing the work," said Hoffort. "We are seeking provincial disaster assistance. We have met the minimum qualifications as far as damage in the RM and we are hopeful many of our affected residents and landowners will be covered."
Hoffort said both the Woodlawn and Hidden Valley campgrounds are still under water as is the Woodlawn Golf Club. Once the water drops, they will be able to see what lasting damage, if any, has been caused to those areas. Whatever the case, it is expected Woodlawn won't be ready to receive campers for quite awhile.
"We are counting on being able to open, we just don't when at this time," said Hoffort who added that infrastructure will also be a concern for the RM as a number of roads remain under water.
During a Monday morning conference call, Fahlman also dispelled any concerns about damage to either Rafferty or Boundary and added that both dams are operating as expected.
