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The flooding in the RM of Garden River northeast of Prince Albert doesn’t seem to be slowing down, leaving the RM’s Deputy Reeve Larry Adamko with two priorities.
His first is the Garden River, that is now approaching record historic height and volumes of water.
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“It goes through two divisions with two bridges already closed and a possibility of two more being compromised and destroyed,” he said.
“The second priority is the river system coming through … Janow Corners, which has caused major flooding throughout the RM. That has seemed to have subsided now over the last couple of days, but we are working on that to relieve the water pressure and get it flowing in other areas to help with that system,” Adamko said.
On Friday, the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency noted 22 active flooding incidents in the province.
Adamko said the flooding has already taken a massive toll on residents in the area.
“Our Garden River is the major issue right now. We’re going to lose a lot of infrastructure. We have one individual that’s stranded right now, another individual that’s lost a lot of infrastructure, as far as bins and equipment, and I hear some livestock also. So it’s been very stressful last week for many residents and the RM,” said Adamko.
Adamko said that in all his years, he’s never seen anything like this.
“I’ve been here 60 years, and I have never seen the Garden River this high in my lifetime, this wide, or this fast — we’re talking areas of 10 to 12 feet of water at unreal amounts of flow and any floodplain along the way is just expanding out, carrying out trees and culverts and destroying bridges.”
Residents in the RM are keeping a watchful eye on the weather.
“… the Garden River should peak by mid next week or early next week. We don’t know for sure, it’s going to depend on the weather, but they are talking about levels rising another metre throughout the weekend —hopefully it won’t hit that metre. If it does, we are in big trouble,” said Adamko.
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