Town of Sexsmith working on flood prevention

Mar 18, 2021 | 5:30 AM

The Town of Sexsmith is working on some things to prevent a repeat of the flooding that hit the town last April.

Mayor Kate Potter says the town is taking advantage of the early spring.

“Our public works has very been busy in the last number of weeks making sure we’re ready of that were to happen again. We’re hopeful since there is less snowfall, but you never know what you’re going to get between March and April. There is always some snow. There is always some rain or things like that.”

She adds they are doing several things.

“They steam out culverts. They go down into our drainage areas and they actually take backhoes and clear thing s out so the water can already start flowing well ahead of when it would naturally thaw because otherwise, it would just create large build-ups.”

Potter says the town is also looking at doing another dozen things contained in its Storm Water Master Plan once the weather gets warmer. That would include digging out the creek bed, building berms, and replacing smaller culverts with bigger ones.

She adds the town has also booked pumps and lined up sandbags.

“We do have some already that we keep for emergency’s sake. In the coming weeks here, we’ll start to fill extra ones so that we’re ready. If it does come down to it, I mean last year we saw it where we ended up with volunteers filling sandbags for, I believe, it was three days just straight, day and night.”

Potter says keeping some sandbags on hand means they can be deployed faster.

by Curtis Galbraith