Alberta Flooding

If you haven't been following the craziness that is Southern Alberta right now, we are experiencing massive flooding after some torrential downpours! Calgary, High River and Canmore have been hit the hardest with evacuations in Calgary totaling more than 100,000 homes!

Schools in all of Calgary have been shut down to decrease traffic. The entire downtown core has been shut down, including power and gas.

Here's a picture of the southeastern corner of downtown (right by the Stampede grounds):

Intersection downtown:

Downtown from the river:

Some footage and more photos:



Here's an aerial shot of High River (about 30 minutes south of Calgary):

A house floating down Bragg Creek (a small town just south and west of Calgary):



There are also warnings/flooding in Okotoks and area, Red Deer, Banff, Medicine Hat...

[Update: The reason for the flooding, as explained by The National's meteorologist, is that we received the amount of rain normally received over 30 days over 30 hours! The cause? A tornado that Denver, Colorado received a week or so ago (not to be confused with the devastating F5 that Oklahoma experienced a few weeks ago)! Amazing!]

You can follow more pictures and updates on Twitter: #abflood and #yycflood.

For more info on the evacuations and so forth, see this article.

For more info on how to help during the flood, including donating to the Canadian Red Cross, see this article.

Popular pictures of a daring escape by man and cat here!

Another unfortunate effect of the flooding, is that the highway we would normally be taking to get to Victoria next week, Highway #1, has been washed out in/near Canmore.

Some footage:

If necessary, our alternate route lies through Crowsnest Pass. We may head down through Spokane, Washington and take the Port Angeles ferry.