Morden's Director of Operations Tim Reimer isn't ruling out flood conditions, due to the Colorado low expected to bring more precipitation to the area over the next couple of days.
He gave a brief recap of what has happened since the last Spring snowstorm earlier in April mixed with warmer temperatures last week, melting the snow in a short period of time.
"Wednesday and Thursday of last week, we had quite a substantial amount of waterflow coming into our lake, which increased our levels. It increased the level of the lake probably close to six feet, putting it over top of the spillway, therefore giving our wonderful creek through town high volume. It did put us a little bit on alert. What we did last week, of course, the whole thing started earlier in the week, probably Monday to get us really prepared for everything, we started filling sandbags, stuff like that."
Morden Fire and Rescue filled over 800 sandbags with approximately 150 of them going out last week. There was some localized flooding in the city due to overland flooding trapped between high snowbanks in a couple neighbourhoods, and a slower flow through the Falcon Drive area.
Reimer said this week brings uncertainty.
"New week, new weather system coming in. As I've heard, there is apparently a weather disturbance coming through. Just like any other April, we can almost guarantee either a rainstorm or a snowstorm, or any type of weather in April. So, it does bring our monitoring levels up again, so we are going to be watching. The big thing will be, as far as how much we get, whether it comes in rain or whether it comes in snow, that will really determine what happens."
Reimer added, they are ready for a variety of outcomes.
"And we kind of prepare for everything. We haven't put away our snow clearing equipment yet. That stuff is all still ready to go. And of course, our sandbagging equipment, it's all still ready to go. We probably have in and around six or seven hundred sandbags sitting there, but we do have probably another 20,000 empty bags sitting there that can be filled. Is the level going to go back up to what it was last week, or possibly even higher? It all depends on how much moisture we get, and what the weather does following the storm, as far as how quickly things melt and what that produces."
Reimer noted their eyes are definitely on Lake Minnewasta because more precipitation could have an effect on it.
"We also still have a lot of ice on the lake, so of course that's always a big concern for us. If the lake level does rise too rapidly, we can get a large amount of ice coming over the spillway, which comes into the city, and then we get a lot of the bridges locked by ice. We did have a bit of that problem on Thursday. Fortunately, we prepared ourselves beforehand, so we did have equipment ready to go and stuff like that."
So far, the Alvey and Parkhill bridges are unaffected by flooding or ice, and will be ready to resume construction in a few weeks.
Reimer concluded, the snow has mostly melted in the country and even along the bush lines. With that said, "Are we out of the woods as far as flood? My best guess is no. Anything is a possibility, and it really depends on how much precipitation we get over the next couple of days."