The City of St. Albert was still receiving calls on Wednesday after heavy rainfall on Monday led to sewer backups, flooded intersections and waterlogged basements.
On Monday, the city saw steady rainfall throughout the day and medium to heavy rainfall in the early evening. “With the ground already saturated, this rainfall event resulted in substantial stormwater runoff,” said Regan Lefebvre, the city’s senior manager of utilities, in an email.
As a result of the rain, the city received 110 calls to its emergency dispatch line, and it is aware of at least 26 sewer backups. One backup impacted 17 units at a multi-family site.
“We are currently tracking locations of sewer back-ups and use this information to prioritize our capital planning for the repair, maintenance and replacement of infrastructure,” Lefebvre said. “Stormwater can enter the sanitary system through manhole lids, from the gravel bedding beneath the roadway or from home weeping connections in older areas of the city”
Several intersections in the city were submerged by the rainfall. The city placed barricades at the intersections of Hebert Road and Akins Drive as well as Sturgeon Road and Brandon Street, “out of an abundance of caution,” Lefebvre said.
Sturgeon Heights, Braeside and Akinsdale faced the heaviest damage and disruption from the rain.
“These are older neighbourhoods with older infrastructure,” Lefebvre said.
The St. Albert RCMP detachment building was also hit with flooding that impacted some of its office space, but police service hasn’t been affected.
Flooded basements
On Monday, Keri McEachern’s daughters arrived home from work at around 6 p.m., went downstairs to their bedrooms and “started screaming,” McEachern said.
McEachern estimates about four inches of water flooded the basement of her Akinsdale home.
“The walls are soaked, the flooring is warped,” she said. “It's a fully finished basement suite with furniture, beds, a kitchen, appliances – everything.”
McEachern, her mother and her daughters tried to staunch the flooding themselves using a shop vacuum and a mop to push the water down a basement drain, but quickly realized they needed professional help.
Although she lost furniture, clothing and electronics, McEachern said she’s happy she could save her daughters’ “baby bins,” filled with sentimental items from the girls’ childhood.
However, the restoration will take six to eight weeks, disrupting her summer plans.
“My one daughter is only home for the summer,” she said. “She goes to school in Calgary. If she has to relocate to a hotel, and if I stay here, because my bedroom upstairs is fine, then, you know, l don't get to see my kid all summer.”
Mike Howes, president of DKI - Sparklean Restorations, said that the business received about 10 calls Monday night and another five or six Tuesday morning from locals whose basements were flooded.
Many of the floods were due to landscaping, Howes said.
“You cannot have a negative grade into your house,” Howes said. “Most often we find, for whatever reason, the water is all rushing to the house instead of rushing away. It’s not a case of needing somebody to come in and dig up their foundation and waterproof their basement -- they just need to get enough soil and landscaping to get the water to run away from their house.”
The problem can be caused by sunken sidewalks or uneven soil that creates a downward slope angled towards a home.
“It's all about the direction of waterflow,” Howes said.
Howes also cautioned homeowners living in areas where the water table is high to check their sump pumps regularly.
“A lot of times over the winter it's been dry and it's not kicking in, or the float switch could be stuck, or you might have unplugged it and forgotten,” he said.
The Edmonton area has seen 32.3 millimeters of precipitation already this June, according to Canada Weather Stats, which takes its data from Environment and Climate Change Canada. Last month the area saw 58.5 millimetres.