High River Flood Improvements Spring 2014

SE Corner of Highwood Lake (Slough) 30 Apr 2014

Highwood Lake/Slough 04 July 2013

 Welcome back flood fans!! 

We have received some valuable information from the Town of High River, which I will get to shortly.

First, remember the pictures from last year's flood of the Highwood River?? The ones I posted showing the new lake in North-East High River.

Well I went out earlier tonight and took a shot of the field. The lake/slough is still there. The Spring rains have not begun yet.....of course, Spring may not be here yet - it is suppose to snow this weekend. But, I digress.

The body of water still occupies the fields in North-East High River. My deduction is the water table is still full. With more than 8 months to "soak" into the ground or evaporate, and neither has happened leads me to believe the water will take years to go away. Just my guess.

Now the good news!!!!

Chart from Town of High River Emergency Preparedness Package to Residents 29 Apr 2014

The Mayor  and the rest of the team at The Town of High River have sent out an emergency preparedness package to every home in town. Great initiative Mayor Craig!! 

One piece of information in that package was the chart displayed above. The historic river flow of the Highwood River. With information like that you could make my flood warning index work very well. The river volume during the very bad flood of 1995 was 923 cubic meters per second. Now checkout 2013....1750 cubic meters per second, almost twice as much water as the worst flood recorded in living memory. I guess we are lucky we did not suffer more damage. Thanks to the Mayor and team for getting this information out to the citizens of High River. 

Flood Warning Index

To return to my flood warning index with the figures we now have, I think it is safe to classify the Flood of 2013 as a Red 3 class flood. That still leaves room in case it is ever needed.

So, to plug in some numbers:

Red 1 starts at 600 cubic meters per second

Orange flood level would range from 400 - 600 cubic meters per second

Yellow flood level would range from 200 - 400 cubic meters per second

Grey flood level would range from 150 - 200 cubic meters per second

I just hope enough data was gathered from this flood so, those in charge of the next flood can make the best predictions possible and provide the citizens living downstream of the Rocky Mountains enough time to make the best decisions for their family and property.

Remember, knowing when to evacuate

Really does depend on receiving the most accurate information

In a timely fashion.

Mountainman.