Another year, more flooding in Cupar area

While many in Regina will be preparing to go outside and enjoy the weather this week, people in the Rural Municipality (RM) of Cupar, north of Regina, are heading outside to mitigate flooding.
 
The RM’s reeve, Ray Orb, said they first noticed the water coming in about two weeks ago.
 
“Of course, (the water’s) not going out anywhere because it’s a low-lying area. It’s actually like a basin.”
 
Orb said they started sandbagging when the water began to rise, but it wasn’t able to hold the water. But he said people in the community have come together to help.
 
“We had lots of help getting the Southey volunteer fire department to come and help sandbag. We had a few RM councillors that pitched in, local ratepayers came and helped as well.”
 
Orb said there are about 50 roads which are flooded over. Highway 6 is closed because it’s covered with water. Orb said the Department of Highways came in and built berms and ditch blocks to protect the main highway.
 
“We got lots of bus routes that were impassible, and there are still some that will be impassable all summer, probably well into the winter next year,” said Orb.
 
Orb said most kids are able to get to the bus for school, though there was one case where parents had to use a quad to get through a field to their neighbour’s home to get them to the bus.
 
Three homes near Southey are being threatened by water. Orb said they’re watching the levels hourly, and people from PDAP and Emergency Preparedness have come to help.
 
Orb sighed when he said they’ve had a lot of problems with flooding. In the past five years, Orb said there was only one that they didn’t declare a disaster.
 
“We declared a disaster twice last year because we had so much spring runoff and then we had a lot of this extra rain later on in the summer … it just devastated the crops, it devastated some of the farmland and we’re still trying to recover from that.”
 
The RM council declared a disaster last week.
 
Orb said people are getting sick of it. There are those who are victims of the flooding.
 
“It’s a very stressful thing to get up in the morning, and look out and see water. There’s water all around your yard and you don’t know how long it’s going to be. It might be that day that you have to actually be evacuated.”
 
And Orb said the administration in the RM is under a lot of stress trying to fix things the flooding has wrecked, like roads.
 
There is good news though. Orb said they believe the flooding has reached its peak.
 
“If we don’t get any rain or wet snow in the next week to 10 days, I think we should be OK.”
 
He said they’re now in the process of getting rid of the water that’s there.

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