A major section of the Trans-Canada Highway near Maple Creek, Sask., remains closed today as record rainfall in southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta continues to cause major problems.Trevor Hadwen, an agroclimate specialist with Agriculture Canada, said that area has received 279.2 millimetres of rain since April 1. Normal rainfall for that time period, measured over the last 30 years, is 106.9 mm.”That’s approaching 261 percent of normal rainfall since April 1,” said Hadwen. “Much of that, about 70 mm, came in a one-day event on Friday, June 18.”Runoff from that storm completely washed out a 75-metre section of the westbound lanes of the Trans-Canada Highway early Saturday morning and one lane of the eastbound section.Doug Wakabayashi of the Saskatchewan Department of Highways said he’s never seen a washout so violent.”We had some pretty widespread flooding that caused some problems in 2006 and 2007,” said Wakabayashi. “But this is pretty dramatic.”In all, traffic is being re-routed around nearly 80 kilometres of the highway between Dunmore, Alta., and Maple Creek. Wakabayashi is hopeful a temporary fix will allow traffic to flow later this week.But it’s not just drivers that are facing adversity.Farmers in the area are faced with excess moisture in their fields, the movements of cattle or feed have been brought to a standstill due to saturated roads and reports of foot rot in livestock are starting to come in.”Most of this area was seeded early,” said Hadwen. “But now farmers are dealing with standing water, rot, erosion and wash out.”The combination of excess moisture and daytime heating has Environment Canada predicting more rain for the area over the next day or two.”They’re not out of the woods yet,” said Hadwen.
Southwestern Sask. swamped, more rain to come
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