yyc flood

My goodness what an insane weekend in June a couple weeks ago. Calgary, Canmore, and High River were flooded to the point of emergency evacuations in communities that boarder the Bow and Elbow rivers. Bowness was one of those communities. 

I could hardly believe it when I saw this picture on the internet: 

That's Mary's Convenience store. I remember going there once and saw that a few canned items were expired on the shelf. I never went back. It's so crazy to think that I lived down in that area only 9 months ago. And I thought last year was bad? This year takes the cake....and the pie...and cookies... and maybe even the trifle. Just insane.

Because of all the road closures on the 21st, I had to cancel with a few of my clients. The mayor advised everyone to stay indoors. On my way back home from the first client, I swung by Bowmont Park to see what all the fuss was about. It was so surreal to see this. Honestly, if you don't see it in real life, you don't understand how incredible it is. Incredible in a negative way that is. I was so sad to see all the natural habitat ruined. It was especially sad to see all the beautiful riverside homes waterlogged.

Here are a few more pictures I found on the internet:

High River was definitely hit the hardest. People were only just allowed back into their homes this week (that's 2 weeks of waiting) to see what they could salvage.

There was also a boil water advisory scare. We never did actually have to boil any water, but people like to panic. This is in Safeway. No water to be seen:

When it finally stopped raining on Saturday, I went on a walk with Kobe. It's so crazy to think that in this picture, Calgary was still in a state of emergency.

I also can't imagine how horrible it would have been with all the road closures to have a wedding! Angela Basi (now Calvert) and Jon could tell you all about that. They got married on the 21st. The positive news is that they're now married! Yay! They had their reception on Saturday the 22nd.

These two are seriously so perfect for each other. 

On Sunday I took a walk with Rick and Denise from Memorial to the 14th street bridge. So crazy to see the river up close.

There should be a pathway down there somewhere...

And just to lighten the mood a little, here are a couple more pictures from Nose Hill.

The next week there was another flood. This time it was a flood of volunteers to help those in need. It's incredible how disasters unify society. I really wanted to help out too so I went down to Bowness with a group of people from my stake.

There were so many volunteers there that they really didn't need me anywhere. Brother Young and I went door to door asking people if they needed any help with anything at all. Everyone declined. We then were able to help some people squeegee the basement floor of a house that was being built. It turns out that that was kind of useless as they pressure washed the walls right after we just dried the floors. Fun stuff. Useless. Well, at least we tried. 

I'm so thankful that I live so high up. I always dreaded something like this would happen when I lived in Bowness. Thankfully everyone I know wasn't affected. Everyone except Carol and her mom. Poor girls were evacuated for a week. Thank goodness they live up high and the flood waters didn't reach their apartment. 

Now the call has been sent for volunteers to go to High River. I hope there will be just as much help because they need it the most.