'Icebergs' smash through RV park, sweeping away trailers and leaving destruction

When Andre Mercier turned up at work Monday, he found his RV park in central Alberta covered with what looked like icebergs.

After a long, cold winter, last weekend's warm weather caused the Red Deer River to melt. 

The sure sign of spring wreaked havoc on River Creek RV Park, which is west of Stettler along Highway 21.

 "It looks like a tornado had gone down through the campground," said Mercier, who manages the park. "Devastation."

Smashed decks, missing RVs

Decks had been smashed.

Trailers had moved, damaged and filled with water nearly a metre deep.

Three RVs had floated away entirely. 

And, Mercier said, "there was chunks of ice, just like icebergs, all over the place, under the trailers, hidden."

"For the people, it's terrible, it's just devastation," Mercier told the Calgary Eyeopener Friday. "They're quite emotional right now. I hope that everybody will be able to to get together and get things back together."

Of the roughly 50 units parked on the site, Mercier said likely 75 per cent of them are "written off for sure."

Some longtime campers are filing insurance claims. Others won't likely rebuild, he said, as they're in their 80s now.

The cleanup of the park will likely take weeks, and may force the park to miss opening day on May 15, he said.

Not all of the ice chunks have yet melted, so they still can't assess the full damage. They also need to wait to for everything to dry out.

Hopefully, Mercier said, they'll find the three RVs that floated away. He said he expects they're buried along the river, perhaps tucked in the ice.

"We were sure lucky that way that nobody was there," he said.