'It's a mess': Saskatoon residents clean up basements after 1-in-25-year flood

Pius Gartner says the only thing to do now is to wait for his insurance agent.

On Monday night, Gartner watched as roughly 45 millimetres of rain poured down on his home in Saskatoon'sAvalon areain the span of an hour.

His backyard soon started flooding, and he started putting down rags around his back door and basement windowsto prevent seepage.

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Then, water started coming up through his basement drain and toilet.

"There's no way I was stopping that," he said. "It came up 18 to 24 inches high out of the hole, and I was done."

This isn't the first time people near the intersection of Dufferin Avenue and Bute Street have had flooding trouble. Seven years ago, during a similar downpour, the same thing happened. Just like this year, water flooded into the intersection, creating a temporary lake.

"The city hasn't done anything," Gartner said. "I don't know."

Officials say they're well aware of the problem. While the city has worked on storm-water drainage in many other parts of the city, Avalon presents a special problem for planners.

"The houses on the street are quite low in relation to the street," said Galen Heinrichs, manager of water and sewer engineering for the city. "They are limited things you can do in a storm-water situation."

Heinrichs said the neighbourhood's design makes the situation particularly problematic. Every year, the city collects a special storm-water utility levy, designed to fund major projects to help with flooding situations.

However, he said there are some situations that are very difficult to fix.

"Sometimes you're talking about a solution that would be in the tens of millions, or there may not be a solution at all," he said. "And that's just an unfortunate fact."

Meanwhile, Pius Gartner is busying himself by cleaning up his basement, and hoping he'll be covered by either the city or insurance.

"I feel sick," he said. "I don't know what's going to happen."

Flood response

The City of Saskatoon says the amount of rainfall varied greatly depending on location. While some areas on the east side of the city received 10 millimetres of rain, southern areas like Avalon received 45 millimetres, causing a one-in-25-year flooding situation.

Saskatoon Light and Power said there were four major outages Monday night, including two caused by lightning strikes. As a result, many neighbourhoods on the west side had their power knocked out for hours.

One of those outages was in the Haultain, Adelaide/Churchill and Nutana Park area, and the other was in the central industrial area.

An outage in Riversdale was caused by tree contacts and another at Station 20 West happened when equipment was damaged by the storm.

Power to all four areas was restored by 10 p.m. Monday.

The agency said updates are available at the City of Saskatoon website or on its Twitter account.

The city said anymanhole covers lifted by the storm should be reported to public works customer service at 306-975-2476.