In preparation for the upcoming flood season, Fort McMurray will be spending $10 million on flood mitigation projects – only a fraction of a much larger budget to protect the region from water damage.
During an event showcasing the municipality’s flood prevention measures, emergency management director Scott Davis said that this year’s risk of flooding is average, but he also warned that in the weeks leading up to last year’s severe flooding, the risk appeared “average” as well.
“It was an average year,” Davis said. “Just Mother Nature and Athabasca will tell us what they want to do.”
Davis referred to ice chunks coming from the frozen Athabasca and Clearwater Rivers finding their way downstream, getting caught in rapids, which leads to blockage and causes the rivers to overflow.
To mitigate the potential damage of flooding, the city has already set up 3.5 kilometres of temporary clay berms, 2.3 kilometres of 170 triple dams, 2,000 tonnes of sand in 400 meters of sandbags and 100 meters of temporary mesh walls along the coast of Fort McMurray’s lower townsite.
The municipality has also installed 175 plugs covering manholes. A previous report found that manholes on the river side of existing berms allowed the floodwater to flow into the storm and sanitary system, which allowed the water to bypass the berm from underneath and spill into downtown. Water from overland flooding also overwhelmed the manholes, the report found.
Pumps have also been installed in the area as a backup, should the berms or triple dams experience a minor failure.
Fort McMurray Today reported that by 2023, it is expected that the city will have spent a total of $257 million on permanent flood mitigation measures since 2015. This includes the $44 million the city had set aside in its 2021 budget and another $63 million it plans to use for the next two years.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimated that last year’s flood caused over $424 million in insured damages, and $617 million in uninsured damages. The bureau also underscored that 2020 was ranked as the fourth highest year for catastrophic loss.
