North West River Road reopened, communities reconnected

The road to North West River and Sheshatshiu has reopened after heavy flooding closed it, cutting off both communities for about a day.

All traffic is now allowed to travel Route 520

Katie Breen CBC News Posted: May 13, 2017 10:34 AM EDT | Last Updated: May 13, 2017

This area was fully underwater early Saturday. The stick was placed in the water to determine the rise and fall of the water. (Jacob Barker CBC)

The road to North West River and Sheshatshiu has reopened after heavy flooding closed it, cutting off both communities for about a day.

Rte 520 has reopened to all traffic. @TW_GovNL advises motorists to use caution #nltraffic
—@TW_GovNL

At peak flood, waters rose in the four-to-five foot range, according to the Department of Transportation and Works.

Emergency measures

Earlier Saturday, the province brought in a helicopter to flypeople needing immediate and serious medical attention to the hospital in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Flooding on Route 520 began Friday evening. (Katie Breen/CBC)

The flooded stretch of Route 520, or North West River Road,was closed to vehicular traffic Friday evening. Emergency vehicles were taken off the road Saturday Morning.

Labrador-GrenfellHealthopened theManiAshiniClinic for less serious medical cases.

Families stuck on thewrong side

About 20 familiesweren't able to make it hometo North West River andShehsatshiuonFriday night.

"We just stayed for a little bit watching the road," said HarleyJacque, 13, about what happened when her family got a knock on their car window alerting them of the road closure.

Salvation Army says it's served hundreds. Initially set up to help NWR/Sheshatshiu people but HVGB residents have come b/c of outage pic.twitter.com/fJaJHWA2rn
—@KatieBreenNL

"Then we decided to come [to the hotel] just to sleep for the night."

Labrador Inn housed many of the stranded families.

The Salvation Army set up a barbecue in the hotel's parking lot for the people who had been stranded.

Lights back on in Central Labrador

The group ended up serving hundreds as the entire region Happy Valley-Goose Bay,Sheshatshiuand North West River was without power due to an unplanned, regional outage that has since been resolved.

The flood

The flooding was in two sections of Route 520, or North West River Road,near Goose River Bridge.

There is another, more flooded section past this one. Trimper estimates about 1 km of road underwater pic.twitter.com/tEeCQgit2S
—@KatieBreenNL

"Just sort of the west of the bridge, that's where it's quite dramatic," MHA Perry Trimper said of the formerly largersection, closer to the cut-off communities.

He estimatedthat, combined, about a kilometre of roadway had been underwater.

What a difference from morning. Stick set here to measure water levels now completely dry - shoulder of the road completely gone here #cbcnl pic.twitter.com/1FSLIEDXz7
—@JacobBarkerCBC

The cause

The flooding happened because of warm temperatures and spring melt, according to the Department of Transportation and Works.

MHA Perry Trimperdoesn't connect it to the Muskrat Falls hydro project.

MHA Perry Trimper believes a broken off ice jam caused the flood. (Katie Breen/CBC)

"It's a whole different watershed," said the former Environment Minister.

"Goose River watershed is flowing fromkindofthe North West of us, a completely different system, so there'd be no influence at all."

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