Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 | 5:28am PDT
City emergency crews fight record rainfall Tuesday night
Most of us recall the Ryme of the Ancient Mariner from our school days. Or if not, at least the line that starts "water, water everywhere." And that pretty much sums up the night for emergency crews and residents of the city, who had to cope with a record-breaking rainfall that hit the city about 8 last night. Assistant Fire Chief Mike Adams and RCMP Corporal Craig Learning both say using the word "hectic" to describe the next hour or so would be an understatement. Crews dealt with lightning strikes at Kenna Cartwright Park, there was a power pole fire which caused an outage, and constant flooding in many low lying areas as storm drains struggled to contain the water. Adams says there was so much water gushing out the culvert at the south end of the Overlander Bridge that the water spilled debris all over the off ramp. A car actually wound up floating beneath the railway overpass at 10th and Victoria in over 5 feet of water. Adams says the vehicle stalled and as the water kept rising, it got so high the car actually started to float. The occupant was rescued safely. But the roadway was closed for a period of time. And then, the eastbound lanes of the Trans Canada Highway in Valleyview had to be shut down because of rising water in that area. It's an area that's prone to flooding, and Adams says the culverts just couldn't handle the runoff coming off the hills. Corporal Learning says there were a number of incidents involving vehicles, and RCMP were kept busy dealing with that, as well as controlling traffic in the areas that were threatened. Both police and fire crews also had to attend a number of alarms triggered by the thunder and lightning. A total of 3.8 millimeters of rain was recorded at the airport in that short period of time. That beats the daily record for July 26th of 3.2 millimeters, set in 1980.
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