Advice from Hatters to Fort Mac: Don’t bomb the ice jam
By GILLIAN SLADE on May 1, 2020.
Similar to the ice jam flood currently experienced in Fort McMurray, Medicine Hat was flooded in March 1951 and tried to bomb the ice away.--SUBMITTED PHOTOgslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade
As Fort McMurray deals with a flood created by an ice jam, there are some lessons to be learned from history.
Late March 1951 the Royal Canadian Air Force was brought in to drop bombs in the South Saskatchewan River. Large slabs of ice about 10 feet thick created the blockage near Police Point. Water backed up not only in the river but the smaller creeks, too.
On the morning of March 29 the South Saskatchewan River had risen by more than 10 feet.
The baseball diamond at Athletic Park was flooded up to the grandstands and there were concerns that the hospital, near there at the time, would flood on the lower level.
The provincial civil defence director, C.E. Gerhart, received an urgent appeal from Medicine Hat for “bomber service” to break the ice jam.
Operation Wet Hat, as it was called, was the first of its kind to require the services and expertise of the RCAF with operations directed from C.F.B. Suffield in co-ordination with civil defence authorities.
On the river bank overlooking the ice jam was the house of Mr. and Mrs Herb Smith, who were asked to evacuate their home because the bombs were expected to shatter glass.
The RCAF aircraft arrived with a half-ton buster followed by about eight 500-pound bombs. Some were dropped from 5,000 feet and others from a height of 200 and 300 feet.
It did not have the desired effect.
Small geysers could be seen when the bombs touched the surface but they only made small holes in the 10-foot thick ice.
“The obstruction is an egg-shaped mass across the river, buttressed by a triangular pile some 500 feet up stream. Between these two points the block is solid.”
The headline in the newspaper said it all: “Ice Jam Resists First 10 Bombs Send for Thousand Pounder”.
At the height of the flood, ice on the river was very close to the deck of Finlay Bridge.
Meanwhile creeks were flooding and so was the Flats neighbourhood.
The Canadian Army was brought in to discuss using dynamite by drilling into the ice from the shore.
However, the ice floe through the city began to move several hundred feet. This was probably the result of rising pressure from runoff waters from the Bow and Old Man Rivers, a city official said at the time.
Seven Persons and Ross Creeks also began to subside.
At the time the total cost of the flood was estimated to be about $100,000 plus an additional $50,000 for repairs to homes damaged in the flood.
