A commenter from Anthony's website brings some information on the "catastrophic" flooding going on in Calgary:
CodeTech says:
Wayne Delbeke has mentioned the floods in Calgary, and linked to a (horribly biased and uninformed) news item about it.
Here's the deal: there's no "horrible floods" in Calgary. This city has two rivers flowing in, they join, and a single one flows out. Both are high from spring runoff from the mountains. As most WUWT readers know, there was a LOT of snow in the mountains this year, and it's a higher than usual amount (not uncommonly high, but above average). Couple that with a storm system that spun in from Montana, and you get flooding. It's not even catastrophic, although if you watch the news you'd think it is.
Our biggest problem is that we have a politically naive and currently unpopular mayor looking to score brownie points and hoping to win the next election, hence the pro-active and largely unnecessary evacuations. Now, instead of being able to man their sump pumps and keep an eye on their property, homeowners are being forced away, the power shut off, and police and fire are watching the waters rise.
We had a similar flood in 2005, that did not require evacuations, and I predict that when this is all over the forced removal of residents from their potentially waterlogged basements is going to seriously hurt the city emergency handlers. Also another similar flood in 1995, and 1989, 1988, a few in the 70s, and so on back in time.
Meanwhile, while I was attempting to explain this on the CNN news item (yes, we made CNN). and if you think the CBC news item got it wrong, CNN and FoxNews both have them beat by a lot!) but apparently CNN is only interested in blocking any comment that could possibly lead someone to believe that this has nothing to do with "climate change". But hey, it's mostly what I expect from the mainstream media. They don't get it right, and their "fact checking" could barely be more lackadaisical.
So, anyone wondering how Calgary is doing, we're fine. Less than 10% of the city was forced out of their homes at a time they most need to watch over them, but the vast majority of those homes are not in danger.
(I live on a lake, 100 feet above river level, because I'm not stupid enough to build on a floodplain)
Here is CBC's reporting (06/20):
Calgary mayor to flood evacuees: 'Gather your valuables and go'
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is urging residents affected by flooding evacuation orders to "gather your valuables and go," while telling the city as a whole to avoid all non-essential travel on Friday.
"The message tonight is that we are still expecting that the worst has not yet come in terms of the flow," Nenshi told CBC News early Friday in a telephone interview from an emergency operations centre. "The dams will crest on both the Bow and Elbow river over the course of the next little while and the downstream impacts will be significant.
"If you live in any of the neighbourhoods that have now been affected by the mandatory evacuation it is time to leave. Gather your valuables and go," said Nenshi, who returned early from an economic development trip in Ontario to deal with the flooding response.
They know how much water is coming down the Bow and Elbow rivers and they know within a foot or two how high the floodwaters will crest. Why evacuate when they have already been through floods of this severity before...
