Wall Tours Flooded Areas In La Ronge Region
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 14:45
Evacuees from two flooded portions of Northern Saskatchewan have returned to their homes.
The ministry of public safety says 39 residents of Timber Bay and 41 residents of Montreal Lake returned to their homes on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.
Meantime the levels of the Montreal River and Lac La Ronge continue to rise slightly.
On Friday the Montreal River was flowing at 70 cubic metres a second.
By Monday that flow had risen to 77 cubic metres and officials expect it to keep rising.
Meantime Lac La Ronge is about twenty centimeters below the all time water-level high of 1955.
Dale HJertaas of the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority says the main concern right now is that additional rains could swell water-bodies even higher:
“Yeah clearly when you’re already flowing at record levels, if one got another large rain event, similar to the one that drove this, the immediate runoff would go on top. So yes that is what has the potential to push the river significantly higher.”
HJertaas estimates it will be three weeks until levels peak, although it will happen at a gradual rate.
Meantime the ministry of public safety says more culverts have been installed near the Montreal Lake Cree Nation to help that area cope.
Thousands of sand-bags were already delivered to the La Ronge area along with a sandbagging machine.
The department of highways confirms eight roads in the north are still closed due to washouts.
Premier Brad Wall flew into La Ronge today to tour the region.
He says his government is ready to help but isn’t planning any new emergency funding announcements.
“We did the announcing last year, we did significant changes to disaster assistance so it’s important for people to know if they’re on First Nation or off First Nation. The disaster assistance program is there. We’ve reduced the deductible from twenty to five percent. We’ve increased the value that is available for help significantly. When the peak hits after that we’ll have a meeting and the recovery team will be deployed to help folks apply for the help that’s available. But it’s significantly improved over the past year and we wanted folks up here in this area to know that.”
Wall adds provincial officials are also in the area helping coordinate the response to the flood.