Torrential rain floods downtown Weyburn businesses

While the street itself looked like it might be any other day in downtown Weyburn, the whir of fans and propped-open front doors Tuesday morning hinted at the work being done.

Nearly a dozen businesses on 3rd Street, often referred to as Main Street, in Weyburn flooded in the torrential downpour on Monday — locals said as much as four inches of rain, or 10 centimetres, fell in less than an hour, and even more fell besides that.

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Laura Restler wasn’t downtown when the rain was really coming down, but said one of her employees told her water had been up to their knees in the street. Restler is the store operator and pharmacy manager of the Pharmasave.

“When I arrived, we had almost all staff on board that were shifted here for the day, and we were diverting water; we had went and got sandbags to block our front doors,” she explained.

“As the streets were starting to flood, the rain was just coming in from the front, so we blocked all of that, but we already had ankle-depth water in the store all the way to the back.”

Across the street York Jewellers battled the water, too. Owner Alan York said went to the store when he heard what was happening.

“We saw water and some mud sliding under the door into the place (when we arrived),” he said.

They locked the front door and then shoved towels up against it to try to stem the flow of the water.

Alan York says they used towels around the bottom of the door at York Jewellers to try to stem the water rushing into the store on Monday. Sept. 8, 2026. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

Alyssa Demarchi, owner of Root Beauty and Plants, said she saw the rain start to get bad at home first.

“It just got worse and worse until our street was completely flooded, couldn’t see either of the sidewalks, the water was all the way coming up our driveway,” she said, explaining that she soon started to worry about her salon downtown.

The water came in the front door and into the basement for Demarchi, “our drains weren’t working, the sump wasn’t able to pump any water out.”

She said they were able to push the water out of the main floor, but about a foot and a half sat in the basement for most of the day until they were able to get help to pump it out later on.

Blue Earth second-hand

Rose McInnes may have gotten the worst of it. She runs the Blue Earth second-hand stores in Weyburn and all three locations took damage from the storm.

She didn’t get any water on the main floor of the location at 35 3rd Street, but did get it in the basement.

“Went into the basement and the crawlspace, which is about four feet high in the concrete; the water was just pouring through,” McInnes explained.

She said the sumps were working as hard as they could but just couldn’t keep up.

At the store’s clothing location, McInnes said the sewer backed up. She said it had started just a bit, but the storm had started to calm down and they thought they had it under control.

“By the time we went to the other store to triage and came back, it had backed up,” she said.

And then at the furniture location on Souris Ave., she said the ceiling fell down.

“Rain’s pouring, water’s pouring down, so we had lost a whole bunch of product there,” she said.

Blue Earth second-hand on 3rd St. in Weyburn. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

Several of the business owners spoke about people showing up to help out.

Restler said people who weren’t even scheduled to work that day came to lend a hand.

“Everyone really chipped in; they brought in shop vacs, and went to stores to gather things (like) squeegees. My own Red Wing billet kids came in to help out, my son was here mopping the floor,” she said, calling them amazing.

Demarchi said people in the community were helping out her staff in a different way, offering stylists space to take their clients so they could keep their appointments and pay.

The city eventually shut down the street and worked to get the water down, but each business owner was organizing cleanups on Tuesday.

The Pharmasave was open, but Restler said they would likely have to replace flooring, shelving, casing and potentially some drywall.

York Jewellers is worried about potential damage to a set of 125-year-old cabinets that were standing in the water.

And McInnes said trying to handle damage at three stores is a lot.

“Just trying to grin and bear it, one step at a time, and just triaging the issues and trying to catch up,” she said.

However, they’re all trying to keep their heads up. Demarchi commented that everything is replaceable, and all that really matters is everyone is okay.

York said the whole situation is frustrating to deal with, but had high hopes for others.

“I hope everybody else is able to recover from this, it’s not very much fun to go through this, but you know, it could have been worse,” he said.

And McInnes said all they can really do at this point is laugh.

“(One of my employees was) like, ‘you guys are laughing too much for this.’ and I was like, ‘well, what are you going to do?’ We’ve got to just laugh and deal with it and get it done,” said McInnes.

From the city

Weyburn Mayor Jeff Richards said on The Greg Morgan Morning Show, the peak of the rain and flooding came midday on Monday.

“That was a lot. We had an experience in 2011 that was a little bit more rain than that, but this was more than enough.”

He estimated around five inches of rain fell in a couple of hours on Monday.

“For the most part, the systems took it, but there were areas where the system just couldn’t take it. Storm sewers were overwhelmed, and the unfortunate reality is a lot of folks got water in their basement. A lot of businesses on Main Street got water coming in their front doors, and that’s the worst part.”

Richards said the worst hit areas were downtown and in a handful of residential neighbourhoods in Weyburn.

“The waters had started to recede in most areas kind of late afternoon yesterday (Monday). There were still a few low spots that had a lot of water. Obviously, a lot of schoolyards are still full of water, but for the most part, the bulk of our streets were passable by the end of the afternoon or early in the evening.”

While some businesses stayed closed on Tuesday due to flooding, Richards said the city is getting “back to business as usual.”

Weyburn’s city council was scheduled to hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss putting in a submission to the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) after Monday’s rainstorm.

— with files from 980 CJME’s Abby Zieverink

The deluge on Monday flooded several areas in Weyburn. (Discover Weyburn/Submitted)