Police in Calgary, home to Canada's oil industry, ordered 75,000 residents to leave their homes and closed most of the downtown business district after heavy rains flooded parts of the city and corporate headquarters lost power.
Suncor Energy Inc. (SU), Canada's largest energy company by market value, was among businesses closing offices as workers were told to stay home and schools, bridges and roads were shut. The Bow and Elbow rivers, which meet near the middle of Calgary, surged from their banks into neighborhoods and were expected to remain high for several days after 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain fell over two days. As many as 3 more inches are expected in the next 48 hours.
Calgary imposed a state of local emergency and began evacuations last night, according to the city's website. Residents also were advised to leave their homes in communities across southern Alberta, where rain-swollen rivers flowed east from the Rocky Mountains and flooded low-lying areas in the foothills and prairies.
'The Bow is moving higher and faster than I have ever seen in my lifetime,' Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said at a media conference in the city. 'Avoid all travel that is not absolutely necessary.'
Nenshi said 75,000 people have been ordered evacuated and no injuries or deaths had been reported.
Downtown EvacuationCalgary suffered its worst flooding in about a century in June 2005 when surging waters damaged 40,000 homes and forced the evacuation of 1,500 people, according to the city website. Water on the Elbow River last night was flowing more than three times faster than during the 2005 flood, Alberta Premier Alison Redford told reporters today.
In Calgary, police ordered the evacuation of downtown buildings, Bruce Burrell, director of the city's emergency management agency, said at a separate press conference. All of the city's bridges are closed, some are underwater and power is out in many downtown buildings, said Ryan Jestin, Calgary's director of roads.
All Calgary Board of Education and Catholic School District schools are closed and the city's light rail system, which connects the outlying suburbs with downtown, has been shut down.
Calgary's Scotiabank Saddledome, where events are scheduled to be held during the Calgary Stampede in two weeks, is flooded up to the 10th row, according to Trevor Deroux, the city's deputy police chief. Animals from the Calgary Zoo have been evacuated or moved to higher ground, he said.
Soldiers DispatchedFraser Logan, a Canadian Forces spokesman, said 1,200 regular troops from Edmonton were being deployed to southern Alberta. The first 600 arrived as early as 1 a.m., he said, with the rest traveling to southern Alberta towns of Kananaskis, High River as well as Calgary this afternoon.
The soldiers will provide humanitarian relief, conduct search and rescue missions and help with evacuation, while police will continue to be responsible for security, Logan said.
Chris Mauer, who works in institutional sales at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said he saw a deck that had broken off a house smash into a bridge over the Elbow River this morning in southwest Calgary.
The flood 'is going to be a big, big problem,' Mauer said in a telephone interview after trying unsuccessfully to drive to work this morning.
'Holding Back'The Bow River was moving 1,500 cubic meters a second above the Bearspaw dam, Nenshi said in the press conference. That may climb to 1,700 cubic meters a second if upstream dams protecting the city are forced to release more water, he said.
'We're holding back as much water as we can,' TransAlta Corp. (TA), owner of dams upstream of Calgary, said on its Twitter page today. The company's headquarters in the city was under an evacuation order, it said.
Bearspaw Dam, owned by TransAlta, was built in 1954 on the Bow River primarily to reduce flooding in Calgary, according to the company website. It's the first of four TransAlta hydroelectric dams upstream of the city on the Bow.
Water on the Bow River rose to just below a Calgary bridge designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Roads including Elbow Drive through the city's southwest quadrant have been flooded and much of the power to the central city was off, darkening buildings and traffic lights.
'Slowly Rising'Peter Butler, a tourist from Massachusetts on a vacation to Canada's Rocky Mountains, was planning to leave the city to escape the floods.
'I think we're going to just fly to Vancouver, just try to get out of here,' he said from the Fairmont Palliser hotel, where staff had lit candles for lighting. 'It was a little bit alarming, going to bed and knowing the waters are slowly rising.'
Between 2 to 3 inches of rain will fall in southern Alberta in the next 48 hours, according to an updated Alberta government weather forecast released just before noon local time. The Bow, Elbow, Red Deer, Sheep, Highwood and Oldman rivers are experiencing 'massive increases in water levels,' the province said in a statement.
Most rivers west of Calgary reached peak levels overnight, but 'flooding danger and risks to personal safety remain extreme.'
Ten InchesPeople in several other towns in southern Alberta were evacuated, including from High River, Okotoks, Black Diamond and from the ski resort town of Banff. The Bow River basin around Banff received 10 inches of rain since the morning of June 19 and people in a residential area of the city were ordered to evacuate, the city said on its website.
A low pressure system moved in off the Pacific and crossed the U.S. Pacific Northwest earlier this week, said Bernie Rayno, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. The movement of the storm and the topography of the Canadian Rocky Mountains create 'ideal conditions' for heavy rain, Rayno said.
'Some areas in the mountains got 5 inches of rain in 24 hours,' Rayno said. 'Where is that water going to go? Down into the streams. Epic flooding is occurring in southern Alberta. This is as bad as it gets.' Rayno said the worst of the rain is probably over.
Company OperationsFlooding in Turner Valley, Alberta, a town southwest of Calgary, likely caused a natural gas pipeline owned by Legacy Oil & Gas Inc. to burst yesterday, the Alberta energy regulator said. Officials and the company said today the leak had been contained.
Suncor operations haven't been affected by the flooding, Sneh Seetal, a company spokeswoman, said by e-mail. Husky Energy Inc. (HSE) has closed some of its gas stations in the affected areas of Calgary and has asked only essential staff to be at work today, spokesman Mel Duvall said in an e-mail.
Crews are working to restore service to parts of the rail network of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP), Canada's second-largest rail carrier, that have been affected by extreme weather, Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the Calgary-based company, said in an e-mail.
Premier Redford planned to visit affected areas today, her office said in an e-mailed statement. Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised federal government support in rescue and recovery efforts. He is en route to Alberta to tour the flood damage, Andrew MacDougall, his director of communications, said in a Twitter message.
The flooding won't have a substantial effect on Alberta's crops, James Wright, a risk analyst with Agriculture Financial Services Corp., said today in a phone interview from Lacombe, Alberta. There aren't a lot of crops grown in the affected areas, he said.
Christian Roman, a 27-year-old plumbing apprentice, was stranded downtown on his way to work in the city's northeast quadrant because of transportation disruptions.
'Everything seems to be in disarray,' Roman said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Edward Welsch in Calgary at ewelsch1@bloomberg.net; Rebecca Penty in Calgary at rpenty@bloomberg.net; Jeremy van Loon in Calgary at jvanloon@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Susan Warren at susanwarren@bloomberg.net; Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net
Enlarge image Calgary Floods Force 75,000 to Evacuate, Head Offices ShutFlood Damaged houses stand along Cougar Creek in Canmore, Alberta, Canada on June 21, 2013.
Flood Damaged houses stand along Cougar Creek in Canmore, Alberta, Canada on June 21, 2013. Photographer: John Gibson/Getty Images
Enlarge image Police Order 100,000 People to Leave Calgary After FloodingJeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP Photo
A helicopter carrying evacuated residents lands on a road in High River on June 20, 2013.
A helicopter carrying evacuated residents lands on a road in High River on June 20, 2013. Photographer: Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP Photo
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