Hatters Montana Christman and Natasha McGrau cross the street in front of a spacious gap in the city's flood protection system that is fitted to have steel gates installed in case of major flooding. The berm and gate system was a major portion of permanent flood mitigation measures built after the 2013 flood in Medicine Hat.--News Photo Collin Gallant
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
The picture windows in Medicine Hat city council chambers were still sandbagged in the summer of 2013 when the city’s elected officials voted to find a “permanent solution” for flooding in the city’s low-laying ares.
Near record flooding had damaged 500 homes in late June. Citizens questioned the safety of the city’s storm sewer system. The province was offering relocation payments.
And Medicine Hat city council gave initial approval to front-end the financing to build a 7-kilometre berm network in the river valley – allocating more than $30 million in reserve funds – just before an election that fall, hoping the city would receive funding from the province and Ottawa.
“It was really imperative of us to act,” said Robert Dumanowski, the only remaining member of the council in office at the time of the flood. He grew up in the Flats and made the motion as the term expired.
“In hindsight there was a little bit of hope, fingers-crossed, involved, but deep down we (on council) knew the value of permanent measures, that it was prudent and that we could get other levels of government on board.
“If it all ends tomorrow, I’d consider any heart and soul legacy from my time in public service as those berms.”
Other city officials who oversaw the following eight years of construction and emergency managers told the News that the city is much better prepared today to withstand water levels that rival the 2013 flood.
Stan Schwartzenberger was the city’s infrastructure commissioner for most of the berm-building project, and said this month the project moved much, much faster than was typical of other major municipal projects anywhere.
“We said that we’ve got to do something,” Schwartzenberger said this week. “I’d say it is virtually unprecedented. It’s striking how fast council was unanimously behind getting things done. The idea was getting something started and worry about the funding later.”
City engineer Carlie Collier, the flood mitigation project manager for the last 10 years, said, “We’re in a much better position today.”
“The odd time when you’re out there you realize the impact that flooding had on these areas, and the impact that the mitigation will have protecting properties. It’s always good to see progress.”
The city had flooded several times in modern history, including 1995, but initial predictions of flood levels in 2013 forecast water volume of up to 25 per cent more. And since the river gets wider as well as higher with additional water, officials were tasked to draw new damage areas based on elevation.
Eventually the standard was set to raise berms high enough to withstand 1995 and 2013 top level (known as the 1-in-100-year flood), plus one metre of freeboard (capable of withstanding the 1-in-200-year flood, or the worst case scenario in 2013).
That protects 1,400 private properties, according to city analysis, behind 5,400 metres of berms topped by 3,400 metres of trailway. Forty storm sewer outfalls were reworked and installed with knife gates to prevent backflow. New ponds and pumps stand ready to remove rainfall and send it over the dikes.
Separately in terms of budget, sewage lift stations that were taken offline in 2013 were replaced or moved at a cost in the tens of millions.
Removable flood gates are ready at six locations, including three parkades on River Road, Riverside, the Downtown YMCA and the larger in Strathcona Island Park.
Crews train each spring on erecting and removing the gates as annual updates are made.
“This is top of mind on an annual basis, and it will continue on,” said Merrick Brown, the city’s director of emergency management. “We train quite hard for flood season, because, for one, we don’t know if a flood will come, and two, if it does, it requires full co-ordination of all city resources.”
The price of the berm network and related storm sewer work totalled $34 million, including portions in Riverside, Harlow and from the Medicine Hat Arena through Strathcona Island Park to past Industrial Avenue, with partial grant funding arriving from Edmonton and Ottawa along the way.
It was a modernized version of one proposed after the 1995 flood, but which was shelved due to the cost, then estimated to be $20 million.
After the city’s bill for the 2013 flood topped $40 million, council approved in principle the new plan that eventually topped $34 million, but was offset by grants.
In 2013, the city also covered $1 million costs to provide sewer backflow preventer valves in private homes.
But the program was not without controversy over the years.
Residents of First Street in Riverside objected to berms running across what was essentially private land on many properties. Beyond the berm and flood gate below Finlay Bridge, the go-forward plan is to erect temporary berms in the middle of First Street.
A berm built in Lions Park ran over a parkway in the area and some Flats residents and even the Lions Club argued the roadway should be rebuilt through a remaining stand of cottonwoods, though council rejected the idea.
An extension of the initial Harlow berm was also a source of contention for residents of Finlay Court, where many homes had walk-out basements, and a final leg of the Industrial Avenue berm was only completed in 2021.
Lowest priority berm projects along Allowance Avenue and the Seven Persons Creek remain unfunded and off city construction outlooks, though that could be discussed this year, officials have stated.
