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Heavy rain had overwhelmed sewer systems, leaving many homes with over a foot of water in basements, while also washing out nearby highways.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Flooding in Saskatchewan has forced more communities to declare states of emergency, while one First Nation has evacuated some residents.
The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency says 11 communities issued alerts over the past week following torrential rainfall.
The agency’s Tyler Harrison says nine people from the Cote First Nation, 280 kilometres northeast of Regina, were forced to flee the community.
He says the evacuees are considered vulnerable and would need easy access to medical services in case of an emergency.
Other communities dealing with flooding are in the province’s east-central region, including Canora, Kamsack and Norquay.
Heavy rain had overwhelmed sewer systems, leaving many homes with over a foot of water in basements, while also washing out nearby highways.
Leah Clark, the executive director of irrigation at the Water Security Agency, told a virtual news conference Thursday that some areas, already saturated with moisture, saw more than 275 millimetres of rain in the last week.
“These localized flood events are very difficult to predict and manage and they’re driven by intense storm systems, which drop a lot of water in a short period,” she said.
Harrison said the public safety agency has sent out equipment to communities that need to pump out water and pile sandbags.
It’s also helping them apply for financial aid through the province’s disaster assistance program, he added.
“If need be, we do have staff available for boots on the ground,” Harrison said.
Earlier Thursday, Brandi Zavislak with the Town of Canora said around 70 homes in the community of about 1,700 people have basements flooded with sewage.
“They’re frustrated, they’re tired, they’re overwhelmed. They want their homes back,” Zavislak, a community development officer, said in a phone interview.
“Our sewer stations are just overwhelmed just because of the high volume of water we’ve received.”
Barry Hvidston, the chief administrative officer in nearby Kamsack, said residents are also frustrated with sewage flooding their basements.
“We’ve got a lake to the south of us right now. It’s usually just a little river. I haven’t seen it that high, ever,” he said.