County takes action to address flooding issue
By Dan Jensen

Camrose County is taking steps to set things right following an August 9 storm in which heavy rain resulted in the flooding of several properties alongside Paradise Road in Tillicum Beach.

"We are taking the effects of this storm very seriously because it impacted a significant area of the County," said Camrose County reeve Don Gregorwich following a presentation by Paradise Road resident Mike Jones to County council August 24.

County administrator Steve Gerlitz told residents who had gathered for the meeting that the County has been in contact with both its insurance company and Alberta Disaster Services regarding compensation for flood victims, and will be working with them to conduct and implement engineering studies to reduce the likelihood of a similar flood ever happening again.

The damages occurred when rainwater crested the banks of a swale running along the north side of Paradise Road and ran down on the other side into residents' homes and yards. Pat Edgerton McGann and Ross McGann had their basement severely impacted by flood water and sewer backup, and had a retaining wall break in their terraced garden, while Jones and Alyson Lavers saw water come into their crawl space from below and above the foundation, accumulating to a level of eight inches.

"Our yard was under eight to 10 inches of water, and our gravel parking pads were seriously eroded," said Jones.

"We were concerned about the house sliding down the slope."

The damages were extensive for other residents as well. Barbara Benyon had about four inches of water in a crawl space in her home's addition. Benyon has been told that insurance does not cover floods, and because her septic did not back up, she would not qualify for anything through insurance. Deirdre Duffy reported the destruction of asphalt steps down to the house, the washout and landslide of a hillside on the north side of the house, and the loss of shrubs and fruit shrubs on the hillside. She also reported damage to drywall and insulation, carpet and baseboards.

Jones mentioned that some of the residents have been using the flood restoration and steam cleaning services of Super Bee, or renting driers at a cost of $35 to $50 per day to dry their homes.

"It gets pretty expensive because you need to run seven or eight of them to clear things out,"  he said.

Ted Gillespie, one of the few residents who did not have any major damage, estimated that the area received four and a half inches of rain in two and a half hours.

"The rain gauge was up to one inch when we started watching a couple of 40 minute shows, and by the time we had finished watching them the level was up to four and a half or five inches," he said.

"I would say it was a one in a hundred year storm.

"It was worse than the one we had in Camrose several years ago when we received three inches over a period of two days."

One of the reasons the swale filled up so quickly, said Gillespie, is that the surrounding fields were so saturated with water from other rains earlier in the summer.

"It couldn't go into the earth like it would have if it had been drier so it ran downhill into the swale and into the residents' homes," he said.

Jones suggested the flooding could have possibly been reduced if the swale had been cleared of tall grass and the swale at the far western end had been extended a little further, so that water would have run from it down into the lake.

"If the swale had been extended it would never have filled as it did," he said.

Residents of the Paradise Road community have asked that the County provide or facilitate access to compensation for all damages incurred by the storm, either directly from the County, from Camrose County insurers, or from the Alberta Disaster Recovery Program.

"We recognize that the County cannot be held responsible for all acts of nature," said Jones. "We also recognize and appreciate that the County has made several attempts over the years to address water flow resulting from heavy precipitation or snow melt. Despite this, there have been at least three flooding events in the past 20 years."