Heavy rain causes flash flooding in Swift Current

After months of dry conditions, Swift Current was hit with heavy rain Tuesday afternoon.

“The skies just opened up, and it just, it came down fast and it came down heavy and it was raining for well over an hour,” said Everett Hindley, MLA for Swift Current.

Heavy rain on June 18, 2019 caused flash flooding in Swift Current. (Everett Hindley)

Hindley said the downpour was a bit unexpected, he’d actually walked to his office that afternoon and said his wife had to come and save him.

“She was back at home and she offered to come and pick me up — she started to come down the street and she actually had to turn around because there was so much water at the end of the block she couldn’t get through,” explained Hindley.

His wife eventually managed to bring him some rain gear to walk home.

Because of the water, the Swift Current Soccer Association cancelled its games and practices for the evening.

Yvonne Haubrich took the photo posted to the Soccer Association’s Twitter account. She said she mistakenly thought her car would be safe because it was parked on the street.

“I looked out and it looked okay, and I looked out five minutes later and it was under water.”

Haubrich said there was flooding in some places up to people’s waists.

According to Swift Current mayor, Denis Perrault, the rain was very localized — he said some people a few kilometres to the north of the city didn’t get any rain.

Perrault said the flooding was mostly in the downtown area.

“Our storm sewers definitely were taxed to the limit. I don’t think there’s a storm sewer built that can handle that much rain in such a short period of time,” explained Perrault.

He said emergency and city crews went out right away to direct traffic and help people.

Perrault was looking at businesses in the downtown a couple hours after the rain stopped. He said there would be some damage from the flooding, but couldn’t say at the time, how bad it would be.

Environment Canada estimated the city got a couple inches of rain in the short deluge. That might not be the end for the city though, the city of Swift Current has a chance of more thunderstorms Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Soccer is officially cancelled for this evening…..@SCUnitedSoccer @CRE8IVECOACH pic.twitter.com/yHdm7wornD

— Swift Current Soccer (@SCSAsoccer1) June 18, 2019