'It was devastating': Medicine Hat reflects on 2013 flood

Looking back at the floods in Medicine Hat in 2013 Thousands of Medicine Hat residents were evacuated due to flooding in 2013. A lot of work has gone into ensuring it doesn't happen again.

LETHBRIDGE — Today marks the 10th anniversary of the 2013 floods that devastated Calgary.

However, Calgary wasn't the only city affected by what's been called the worst flood in Alberta’s history.

"It was devastating on southern Alberta and Medicine Hat was no exception to that," said Robert Dumanowski, a Medicine Hat city councillor who helped push forward flood mitigation efforts in the city.

"We had many of our low-lying areas flooded and many residences and businesses were submerged."

Close to 10,000 Medicine Hat residents were evacuated and more than 1,000 homes were affected.

Fortunately, they were able to get people to safety ahead of the flooding when multiple facilities began taking on water on June 23, 2013.

"Seeing what was happening (in other places) and all of that, we knew the impact and we knew what was coming," said Merrick Brown, director of emergency management for the City of Medicine Hat.

"Ultimately, it caused tens of millions of dollars of damage, not the least of which, the social and economic toil that the people had to deal with," added Dumanowski.

Since 2013, Medicine Hat has been hard at work implementing flood mitigation plans and projects, including the building of berms, dikes and riverbank stabilizations and storm sewer backup protection.

"We started immediately after the 2013 flood with putting some of those aspects in and so it's been a journey for 10 years now and still continuing," said Brown.

"Council was so committed to doing something once and for all that we front-loaded the costs of these developments but then sought to get payback, if you will, or funding back from the province, and the feds, I will add, over time," Dumanowski told CTV News.

The total cost for the projects and recovery was around $34 million, front-loaded by city council.

The city ended up receiving $1.5 million from the federal government as part of the small communities fund and $22.8 million from the provincial government through multiple mitigation and resilience grants and programs.

Mitigation efforts remain ongoing in Medicine Hat, along with plans to keep residents safe in the event of another flood.

"Despite mother nature wreaking havoc on us, we took control and we're confident that next time she throws her will behind us from the standpoint of flooding, we'll be in good stead and be able to mitigate those issues," said Dumanowski.