Calgary flooding

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

Holy crap :O

Sorry for being ignorant but where is the upstream coming from? I thought Calgary and the adjacent areas are situated in the highest point in whole Alberta.

Water from the rivers on the east side of the continental divide (basically the divide follows the BC/Alberta border in the southern half of the province) all flows easterly. Unfortunately Canmore, Calgary, etc have the water flowing towards the communities and not away from them regardless of sea elevation. My wife's family all live in Calgary but luckily none are near the evacuation areas.

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

Cougar creek in Canmore comes straight out of one of the mountain valleys, and joins the Bow River right in Canmore. With all that rain and the resulting melt of snow pack filled and overflowed the creek bed which is pretty much dry most of the year. That right now is creating most of the damage there I believe.
I lived there 20 years and every year that creek floods and screws up the railway and bridge that goes over it. Usually they are able to get some machinery in there and clear debris before it damages anything but I guess this year was just too much.

Originally Posted by intarsiabox

Water from the rivers on the east side of the continental divide (basically the divide follows the BC/Alberta border in the southern half of the province) all flows easterly. Unfortunately Canmore, Calgary, etc have the water flowing towards the communities and not away from them regardless of sea elevation. My wife's family all live in Calgary but luckily none are near the evacuation areas.

Thanks for the explanation

I hope this ordeal gets dealt with quickly and everyone affected can return to their home. Something very unexpected for Calgary.

[Jakegr]

The 2005 floods seem minor compared to that. In one picture it looked like the river rose about 2 m in the last two days.

[kien]

Originally Posted by Jakegr

The 2005 floods seem minor compared to that. In one picture it looked like the river rose about 2 m in the last two days.

I've lived beside the river in this community for over 30 years and I've seen the river crest quite a few times. This is definitely the worst it has ever been!