VIDEO: Central Saskatchewan dealing with extreme flooding as snow melts

Many residents and municipalities across central Saskatchewan are reporting washed-out roads and heavy flooding, approaching record levels in some areas.

A large amount of snow, measured at about eight feet in places like Lake Country, north of Prince Albert, has melted quickly, causing issues with road washouts and flooding fields and golf courses.

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Northeast of Prince Albert, all the roads in the RM of Garden River have some level of flooding, Reeve Ryan Scragg told paNOW.

“We are just completely inundated. The flooding is unprecedented for my lifetime,” he said.

Scragg said there is not much they can do at this point other than just letting the flooding take its course. To protect infrastructure, he said the RM is pumping around some targeted areas.

“It’s a massive amount of water that has to move, and there’s just no way to stop it,” Scragg said.

Scragg said there is not much they can do at this point other than just letting the flooding take its course. To protect infrastructure, he said the RM is pumping around some targeted areas.

“It’s a massive amount of water that has to move, and there’s just no way to stop it,” Scragg said.

Provincial highways are closed in multiple locations north, south and east of Prince Albert, continuing towards Wadena, where about 100 kilometers of Highway 5 is closed until it reaches Canora.

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency has 18 active floods on its website. Last year at the same time, the number was half of of that. An update is expected from the public safety agency early on Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency said on Sunday that people can expect the conditions to last for a few days.

Sustained warm temperatures throughout the weekend resulted in higher flows throughout east-central Saskatchewan, where the snowpack was not yet depleted, and in some cases the peak flow has not yet been seen.

“Recent flow measurements and preliminary analysis suggest that in several streams the flows occurring now are or approaching the highest on record,” the public safety agency wrote.

Hardest hit at the moment are the headwaters of the Carrot River and the northern regions of the Quill Lake and Assiniboine River basins.

Peak water levels are quickly approaching for tributaries, but the Water Security Agency said main bodies of water are still rising.

Other areas, including the Red Deer basin, Nipawin, Prince Albert, and the Beaver River are also responding to the warm temperatures, though with increases of a lesser magnitude. Above-normal flows are expected to continue over the next few days.

The RM of Connaught, which surrounds Tisdale, has declared a state of emergency, while the RM of Paddockwood, northeast of Prince Albert, will hold a special meeting on Mondy afternoon to do the same thing.

Residents of Paddockwood were advised to keep receipts for flood-related expenses, as the RM will be applying for disaster relief funding from the province.

The Pasquia Regional Park and golf course north of Carrot River has flooded, as has the Tisdale golf course. In Tisdale, the water is deep enough that people were wakeboarding down roads, pulled behind a vehicle and passing a Sea-Doo at the same time.

More than a dozen highway closures have been reported due to the flooding. The latest updates on road closures and conditions can be accessed through the Saskatchewan Highway Hotline.

Ron Knutson lives near the hamlet of Garrick in the RM of Torch River. He’s said he’s been driving the same stretch of Highway 55 every day for the better part of 20 years, and he’s never seen the water levels so high.

“I’ve seen water cross in a few places, usually near creeks and smaller rivers, but I have never seen that much water come, especially for the distance,” Knutson said.

That stretch of road remains open, but Knutson said it wouldn’t take much for conditions to get a lot worse.

–with files from 650 CKOM’s Brent Bosker