Aftermath

These pictures were taken yesterday. I spent the last 2 days doing disaster/flood cleanup in my neighborhood. We finished undoing all of the units on the main floor of my building on Tuesday and then crossed the street to help out other home owners. I left at 4:00 as I was teaching at the studio and it was going to take me a long time to get home. I think in the end it took 2 hous when normally it would only take 20 minutes. I got to the condo at 8 am yesterday and by nine the garbage trucks were in place to begin loading. Once we finished there, it was all hands on deck to help out the building across the ally from me.

Surreal, but not like Dali

Well, I went back to my condo this afternoon. Not much that I can really say about it though. Pictures say a 1000 words. So on that note, I will let the picture tell you this story. 

My neighborhood is like a war zone though. Dirt in the streets, heavy equipment, empty "bombed out" buildings etc. Anyway, here it is:

What I find really funny is that the salt fired cup on the dark ikea furniture to the left in the picture withstood the rapids and is still where it was before the flood. I should mention that that unit used to be to the to the right of the window that this picture was being taken from. It traveled diagonally across the room. Crazy...

under water

It's official. I am HOMELESS. This is an aerial shot from a highrise apartment just north of where I live. St. Mary's Cathedral is about 6 blocks north of my condo, and you can see it in the middle of the pic. So I am 6 block back from that. This is gonna suck.

Quack

The next phase in the transformation is webbed feet. The rain is ridiculous outside. I know June is the wettest month for Calgary, but come on, this is stupid. The news on the radio this morning was reporting that you can't take the Trans Canada Hwy to the west, as the RCMP have closed it east of Canmore due to flooding and began evacuating residents in the Canmore area in the middle of the night. My neighborhood is, thankfully, still above water. My little street dead ends on the Elbow river downstream from the Glenmore reservoir. The City tries to control the water levels with the dam, but it is a power generating dam and not meant for flood control so if the water levels rise too much, there is not much they can do about it. I think the mosquitoes are going to be fierce this summer.