(Submitted/ Tammy Lee Bauer)

By Nicole Reis

MAKWA FLASH FLOOD

Village of Makwa spared from major flooding

Apr 22, 2020 | 2:22 PM

Warmer temperatures brought a flash flood to the village of Makwa Tuesday night as warmer temperatures induced a quick spring runoff which flooded village streets for a brief period.

Mayor Keith Nydegger told meadowlakeNOW some culverts in town have been upgraded since declaring a state of emergency in the community in 2018, though current infrastructure is not able to contain sudden water inflow.

“A lot of the water channel used to have bush on it which would hold back a lot of water. There were dams and beaver dams and now those are all gone, ” Nydegger said. “When the water comes, it’s more of a flash flood and there is nothing holding it back to keep it from coming at once.”

Nydegger said since last night, he has received three word-of-mouth reports of residential floods. Although the village now has bigger culverts in some areas, council may need to come up with a new drainage plan as runoff water is not running in the direction originally planned.

“There is engineering for houses where the drainage is supposed to go in town but it does not hold how much water comes in,” he said. “The engineered ditches are overfilled and all the water does travel the wrong way and it does not meet the capacity of the water we get now.”

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Village administrator, Claire Elliott said Tuesday’s flooding has since subsided.

“Seems like the last few years, not like in 2018, the flooding just came and went,” she said. “You would never know it was here. Culverts have been changed but obviously it’s not enough to take water away.”

Water Security Agency spokesperson Brent Eberle said several areas in the province have now seen instantaneous flows.

He said infrastructure upgrades by the province to the west side of the river in Makwa happened approximately five years ago.

“Typically we go out and do snow surveys where we measure and weigh the snow and that area was just average in terms of runoff,” he said.

Eberle said he was surprised at the flooding and attributes flash flooding to the Spring delay.

“We can attribute that to a [poor] run off,” he said. “Had we had a typical melt season, that may not have happened, you can not design structures for instantaneous run off such as that, they just get too large and too expensive.”

The Ministry of Highway and Infrastructure released a statement to meadowlakeNOW stating: “All culverts were replaced over the last two years. The temperature increased dramatically to an unseasonable 22 C yesterday. That, combined with a large snowpack, created a lot of meltwater in a short period of time. We inspected the culverts this morning and all were functioning properly.”

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nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722