Mandatory evacuation partially lifted in Arborfield, Sask.
Residents in areas unaffected by flooding allowed back to community
The mandatory evacuation of the flood-hit Saskatchewan town of Arborfield has been partially lifted.
Residents in unaffected areas are now allowed to return home as 30 per cent of gas was restored to the community.
Rain continued to beat down on the evacuated village on Wednesday morning as rescue crews began the difficult task of cleaning up inundated homes.
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A team of 16 provincial officials are in Arborfield to help the community co-ordinate the cleanup effort.
Huge grain bins have toppled over, cars are in water up to their bumpers and some backyards have been completely flooded.
Confronting the damage
Arborfield resident Ryan Thompson fought back tears as he described the damage to his home, which has water a half-metre deep inside.
"You go home, you don't even know if you've got clean underwear 'cause it was in your bottom drawer," he said.
"That's stuff we take for granted but that's the reality of it."
Thompson, who lives in the worst-affected east side of the town, said it was not the first time his home had been flooded.
But he was confident the town, which he describes as an awesome community, will bounce back from the flood.
"We're fighters, we're grateful for all the help and we'll survive," said Thompson.
Optimism shines through
Arborfield resident Cynthia Prosko said she was one of the lucky ones, with about 20 centimetres of water filling her basement.
Some of her friends have been less fortunate, with extensive damage to their homes, but Prosko said the community would support those residents who were hardest hit.
"Everybody will help everybody else out there, you know, we are a family," she said.
"It's not so much a community, it's just one big family and so I'm pretty confident that, apart from the insurance, of course, that everybody will be OK."
Pumps keep running
In Carrot River, where a local state of emergency was also declared, water was still being pumped from the streets this morning. The local sewage system was inundated, surprising emergency crews who thought the flooding was under control.
Fire Chief Scott Debienne said it was the worst flooding he had seen during his 30 years in the community, which is about 25 kilometres north of Arborfield.
"We were quite bad, because the streets just kept flooding," said Debienne.
"We thought we had a handle on it on Monday night and Tuesday around dinner time the street just started to fill right up again and we just had to rev all our pumps back up and try and gain on it."
Moving forward
Residents of Carrot River are being asked not to do laundry or wash dishes to help ease the pressure on the over-capacity sewage system.
States of emergency have also been declared in the communities of Estevan, Shoal Lake and the Rural Municipality of Arborfield.
The cleanup effort in Estevan, which is about 200 kilometres southeast of Regina, started on Monday after the community received 130 millimetres of rain on Sunday.
According to the government of Saskatchewan, the situation is improving overall, although Burntout Brook and the Pasqua River are at record high levels
About 300 people have contacted Saskatchewan's Provincial Disaster Assistance Program.
With files from Devin Heroux