The town of Canmore estimates damage to public and private property during the June 2013 flood totals $30 million.
That figure was submitted to the province as part of the municipality’s flood recovery action plan in January and represents $14 million in damage to Town infrastructure, $6 million in damage to 44 properties along Cougar Creek and $8 million to properties along Stone Creek.
Canmore manager of engineering Andy Esarte said the $30 million price tag for the natural disaster is a rough estimate.
“The work hasn’t been done to formally quantify both the private and public losses to get an exact number, so those are a rough estimate,” he said.
In total, Canmore residents have made 272 claims under the provincial disaster recovery program. While 44 homes were deemed unsafe to be occupied immediately after the flood, only a few remain unoccupied.
The report also indicated 30 businesses were directly affected by loss or closure and three remained not fully operational at the time it was submitted to the province.
It also details a $4 million estimated cost to the economy during the event, which saw the Trans-Canada Highway closed for seven days and a 14-day boil water advisory issued.
In July, Canmore approved $600,000 to analyze what happened during the flood to understand it better and come up with short-term and long-term mitigations. Soon after, $14 million worth of work in Cougar Creek was approved as short-term measures and Esarte said the work is going ahead as planned.
“Our goal is to have everything complete in early May and, based on our current progress, we expect that is still the target and going to happen,” he said, adding construction work on Stone Creek is also currently underway and he expects it to be complete before May.
Three Sisters Creek has seen debris removal and Esarte said the goal is to have armouring at the outlet of the creek to prevent erosion from occurring where it meets the parkway.
The municipality will soon release property assessments, which will be affected by the flood. Mayor John Borrowman said the Town’s assessor, along with other assessors in the province, have met to discuss the various approaches to take with flood damaged areas.
“I think it is fair to say council had a fairly high level of confidence in the proposed approach,” Borrowman said, adding real estate sales in Cougar Creek will also inform assessments of properties in that area.
Canmore also approved development of a torrent early warning system, prompting criticism from water experts and provincial officials.
Borrowman reiterated the warning system is not a public forecasting system, but for internal use only.
“A lot of concern stems from the possibility of this being something informing the public and skewing the public reaction in one way or another and that is absolutely not what we ware doing,” he said. “If we can put in place an early warning system that shows value, then why wouldn’t we want to have it? It is just one more tool we can bring to help internally know the possibility of what to prepare for.”
