‘It was all hands on deck:’ Humboldt mayor commends community after rainstorm floods town

The City of Humboldt is dealing with a large amount of rainfall from Tuesday night.

According to some in the community, up to four inches of rain fell over the course of an hour.

The rainfall doused streets and ended up bursting a primary sewage line on 2nd Ave. It also caused a large sinkhole in the middle of the road.

The city is asking residents to stay away from the area.

EMERGENCY SEWAGE MAIN REPAIR ON 2ND AVE :
As a result of the heavy rain last night, a primary sewer main has collapsed and a large sink hole has formed on the road surface. The City has mobilized a crew to address the issue.

— City of Humboldt (@CityofHumboldt_) July 1, 2020

Rob Muench, the mayor of Humboldt, says crews are on scene and boil water advisories have been issued in the southeast corner.

“We had a collapse in the road structure,” he said on Tuesday afternoon. “I believe there were some residents along that area that had sewer backup in their house.”

Environment Canada says they weren’t able to get specific rainfall totals in the region, as Watrous houses the closest weather station. It reported a total of 13 mm of rain.

Humboldt declared a local state of emergency on June 14 due to high rainfall totals flooding streets in the area.

Muench says that rain didn’t help them out when it came to the storm Tuesday night.

“We’ve had the continuation of that rainstorm two weeks ago. The ground was just saturated. Personally, in our house we’ve had water in the basement. We were finally getting on top of it. I think we were taking out about 15 gallons a day,” he said.

Still, community members came together to help ensure the city had enough help in cleaning up and blocking off sections of the area, according to Muench.

“Thanks for (the community’s) cooperation. We had residents out helping put up roadblocks (last night),” he said. “Because it’s a holiday here, there were a lot of people out of town. We were short-staffed. I was even out helping put up roadblocks (last night).”

“It was all hands on deck.”

Muench says the city is still trying to look at its options as to what happens next. At this time, they are unsure if declaring another local state of emergency is the right avenue to take.