[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Weathering the Storm stories of the climate cris from Alberta and around the world. This series is part of the Community Podcast initiative in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: You.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: I'm your host, colton Tufts.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: And I'm your host, Brooke Palin. In this episode, we sit down with two survivors of the 2013 floods in High River, Alberta.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: The High River floods may have not have been as well documented as other areas in Alberta. However, the floods took away homes, businesses and a community.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Even though the town is ironically named.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: High River, it was discovered by the.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: Blackfoot people and means Highwood, and was important for settlers during the winter to be near the cottonwood flats along the banks.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: On June 20, 2013, 13,000 residents of the High River community were forced into evacuation. The small farming town was almost entirely washed away.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: HIV river was abandoned within a few days as people were taken out by boats, helicopters and farm equipment. Many flood the town after the flood, seeking a new place to call home. Since then, the town has been restored and new families move in.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Mitch Mapatak had just moved to High River in 2013. He never had any intention to live there, but he needed to live close to his new job at the petroleum plant with his wife and two kids, along with their golden retriever. They were settling nicely in their home. Then the flood hit. Here is my conversation with Mitch, where he shares his story with me and his experience of the tragic time. Due to time constraints and weather, we recorded this interview at South Center Mall in Calgary. So there are moments of background noise.
[00:01:50] Speaker D: Can you tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do? Just sort of at a glance right now?
[00:01:55] Speaker E: Well, Mitch MALP right now career has moved me over to sales.
I got three kids. I was married at the time in 2013, not married anymore.
Probably has something to do with the flood of 2013, but we'll go on with that later.
[00:02:14] Speaker D: So can you tell me what you.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Were doing for work?
[00:02:16] Speaker D: Kind of when the floods first hit.
[00:02:18] Speaker E: For work, I was still in oil and gas. I was in the chemical industry. My position was actually pretty important for me to actually go to work that day.
[00:02:26] Speaker D: And can you tell me what occupied your days when you weren't working?
[00:02:30] Speaker E: Well, I got three kids, two girls and a boy. Taking care of them was pretty busy because they were pretty young. My eldest at the time was 16, then 14, and I think Layton was eight or ten at the time. So, yeah, I was working twelve hour days, so getting home and just taking care of the kids took away from any hobbies. The eldest was in high school, the middle was in middle school, and I think Layton was just getting out of elementary or he was in middle school as well.
[00:03:09] Speaker D: Can you tell about the people who were taking care of you at that time, if there was anyone?
[00:03:13] Speaker E: No, it was just me and the ex wife, of course, that was really taking care of me at the time. So, again, I was in transition from oil and gas, leaving from one position, going into another industry of oil and gas. So I had to focus on that during the time getting into High River. It was oil and gas at the time that actually got me there.
So for me to be in High River, they said, if you want the job, you got to move to High River. So I did that.
So this transition into the chemical industry, I had to work back in Calgary, so I was commuting back and forth from High River to Calgary all the time.
[00:03:58] Speaker D: And do you think you would have ever ended up in High River if it wasn't for this opportunity to work in oil and gas?
[00:04:03] Speaker E: No, not at all. There's a reason why it's called High River.
[00:04:08] Speaker D: So can you tell me just a little bit about the community of High River, what it was like before the floods, you know, the people and just kind of the vibe of it all?
[00:04:17] Speaker E: Oh, yeah, no. When the company asked me to move over to High River, we had the 99 floods that we were actually looking back on. The 99 floods, the first question I asked to the realtor was this house in a flood? Out of the five houses that we saw, this one house was not in the floodplain and that's why I bought it.
But yeah, no, I would never have left Calgary for the most part.
[00:04:48] Speaker D: Can you describe how you became aware of the disaster?
[00:04:52] Speaker E: Wow, well, that was nine years ago, so the recollection is going to be a little dim for the most part. From a disaster like that, you try to forget a lot of the bad stuff, and that's the hard part. So, 2013, I was at work, and because I was working in a chemical plant, we weren't allowed to have our cell phones with us. So there was hundreds of messages on my phone.
By the time I got to my phone on my break, the boss was a little goes, mitch, you know, maybe you should find out about High River and you should go home. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's just a flood. High river is known for the flood, so I thought it was like plain Jane stuff.
As soon as I got to my phone on my break and I saw the messages, that's when the phones actually went down. So I couldn't actually contact my family at the time.
So it was a little disheartening for the most part because I was helpless at that point because the four members of my family were there. My in laws were actually in High river as well, and they were trying to get a hold of me as well to come back home.
But again, having no communication, I couldn't get a hold of them.
So I got in my car and I started driving down a high river, but the roads were already closed and I couldn't make it down. Got took me about an hour to get south of Calgary until I got turned around by the police officers, say, Go back home. So I went over to my mom's place, and I was just waiting. That's all I could do, just wait. So got a hold of some of my neighbors and found out that family got split up, went to the emergency evacuation areas, and my in laws were down in Claire's home, and they got split up. The two of them got split up.
So got reunited back with my father in law, of which was completely he was completely distraught because he didn't know what happened to her, his wife, and that took two days for us to find her.
So it took me 24 hours to reunite with my family. They were all safe. They came over to my mom's house, and that's where we stayed for a couple of weeks. Wow.
[00:07:15] Speaker D: How long did it take you to actually get access to your house and to see the damage and if anything was even salvageable?
[00:07:22] Speaker E: It took 21 days for us to get back to the house.
We had a tour, a bus tour, and you couldn't see any of the damage from the streets through the bus tour until you actually were allowed to go in. As soon as we got in, the smell of whatever was in your freezer was pretty overpowering.
My house was not affected by flood waters. My house was affected by the sewer backup.
So before I went into the house, I went over to get a snack over at the A W, and I asked the girl there, which was one of my neighbors, I go, How'd you do? And she goes, well, we got five inches from the ceiling of the basement. And I go, Your room is in the basement? She goes, yeah. So she lost everything.
She lost her car, her video camera, which was on a battery. She showed me that her car was completely underwater in the street, and inside that car was everything that she was going to move down to University of Lethbridge. So she lost everything. So she actually took two years off before she went back to school to recover.
[00:08:52] Speaker D: Do you remember any sight, sound, smells, maybe from your drive home, jewel trying to get home or anything that kind of still sticks with you?
[00:09:01] Speaker E: Mostly people crying. That's the hard part. To see the Rcfp crying, to see the amount of armed forces that were there, that was pretty rough to see all your friends and no one really wanting to walk the streets anymore or actually hang out like that was hard. High river wasn't the same after that.
[00:09:24] Speaker D: So when you finally got back to the community, can you describe what it was like with you, your neighbors and everything? Kind of a week, two, three after the disaster.
[00:09:38] Speaker E: You can feel the anger. You can feel the sadness. Anger mostly because of the insurance.
Nobody was really getting funds for that.
You could see the sadness, you could see everybody wanting to help, but they were buried in their own stuff that they couldn't really help each other.
It was know, you get a knock on the door and you'll see Red Cross handing out sandwiches and stuff.
At that point I pretty much quit my job so I can help restore the house.
Insurance did what they could, but still lost a bunch of money.
My daughter, she was in a blow up bed for a year and a half because we couldn't afford to have another bed yet.
And she was just getting ready to go over university as well.
She was 17 I think actually.
So she was just preparing her last year there. So none of the kids really had a graduation from High River.
[00:10:44] Speaker D: Can you describe how you felt after the disaster? Kind of sitting there looking at your house and everything to be able to expand on just like your emotions, how you felt?
[00:10:53] Speaker E: Well, because I guess my brain was still in management mode, so everything was all on budget.
It wasn't about how much I've lost, it's all on budget. So before the disaster, my house was actually worth $485,000.
Appraised by the bank, appraised by the town.
After the flood, my house was barely at $125,000.
So 1400 square or 1500 square foot bungalow in a premier part of town and you just spent X amount of dollars and hoping you be in the plus side when you make an investment like that and you're never going to get it back.
The house today, nine years after, is probably still only worth maybe $225,000.
So recovery in High River, I have no idea. Everybody has to forget about the flood first. Right? But insurance always reminds you of that because in High River you're not allowed to have flood insurance anymore.
[00:12:01] Speaker D: Would you be able to describe the effect that it had on your family, the floods and the damage to the house?
[00:12:08] Speaker E: Yeah, I know the kids, they're still affected by it.
I'm pretty sure they got some pretty good PTSD about it. Right. So Layton doesn't like water anymore.
The girls don't really talk about the flood. So that's I'd say two years of our lives that we've all tried to forget about. I did lose my dog.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Did you?
[00:12:33] Speaker E: Yeah, that was the hardest part.
And I didn't lose him because of the flood. I lost him because we couldn't get to his medication. Right. So that's something we always talk about. The kids and I always talk about we miss them amazingly.
I just want everybody to know I did lose my dogs.
[00:12:55] Speaker D: Do you mind if I ask you a little more about him? So how old was he when he finally passed?
[00:13:01] Speaker E: Sawyer was about nine, so he's a yellow lab. We had him since he was a pup and we bought him in High River the year we moved in. Like, he was pretty special to us. Definitely a family member. Of course he was already sick in 2013, but his medication kept him calm. But with all the moving around and him being uncertain, we didn't have the proper food for him, even with all the donations and everything.
Kind of got his stomach all inflamed and stuff, so Noah started getting pretty dry. You could see that he was getting weaker and weaker by the day.
So we had to put him down, we had to make a choice, put him down.
And it took three days from the time of evacuation that we actually lost them. So it was a tough decision. It was a decision that needed to be made because it's quality of life for a family member and it was just brutal at the time. So we definitely love him, definitely miss him, but yeah, he was our pride and joy. Right.
[00:14:16] Speaker D: How about the community? Was there an obvious change in the community after the disaster and how everyone kind of felt about High River?
[00:14:24] Speaker E: About the community? Yeah, before the floods, I think High River was pushing about 1101, 200 people. After the flood, there was about 7000 or 6000 last time I heard, shortly after the flood. That was for the population.
The golf course, of which that's where I used to work as well, we lost a lot of the golf course, a lot of the members have left, so it took a while for everybody to recover. But for the most part, all of us were just trying to forget about the flood. But it's such a big part of our lives that it just overtook a lot of the conversations. And usually most people just shy away from conversations that are uncomfortable. So a lot of the friendships have a lot of them have disappeared.
[00:15:14] Speaker D: Did the disaster make you think about climate change? Was that something on your mind where you go, oh, climate change is a result of this, or was it kind of just solely on the disaster itself?
[00:15:23] Speaker E: No, when it comes to climate change, no, I'd say no.
It was a perfect storm. I would go towards that. There's nothing that can really stop nature as far as I'm concerned, being part of the oil and gas industry. For as long as I did, I was in oil and gas. Oil and gas in Canada, we do everything we could to protect the environment and help the environment and record the environment.
A storm like this, there was no way of mitigate for any kind of mitigation or forethought about the mitigation. So what the province and the country has done to help with Mitigation so that it doesn't happen again. They're doing the best they can, but really it's nature. What do you do, right? You buy a brand new umbrella and a strong enough wind comes over and wrecks it. You're going to blame it on climate change? I don't think so.
[00:16:25] Speaker D: We know that a lot of the time, disasters and how people look back on them is kind of dependent on how much help they got from the government and even just like the community, people around them and their family. So can you describe the help you got during the floods?
[00:16:42] Speaker E: During the floods, overwhelmed with the help Red Cross, I will name the companies. Like ATCO Baker Hughes, they really stepped up. And I really didn't have a strong tenure with Baker Hughes.
Both of them, together with the amount of volunteers that actually came out as well, and people that I haven't seen in forever, would spend two, three days coming over to the house and trying to help us and our neighbors.
To see the amount of equipment that came over from oil and gas was completely overwhelming.
It was absolutely amazing to see dumpsters bigger than most trucks come down my street and really just park right in front of my house.
But everybody was using it. It was absolutely amazing. They spent tens of thousands of dollars to help me and my family and my neighbors.
[00:17:57] Speaker D: Was there any help that would have been just really, I guess, helpful, but you didn't get it or wasn't available?
[00:18:05] Speaker E: I would say that the insurance companies could have helped a little bit more, could have been a little bit more.
I don't know how to word it properly, but the insurance companies could have actually stepped up a little bit because I don't know anybody that actually got to the plus side or even broke in black.
Everybody was all in red when the flood happened. Everybody had quite a bit or substantial loss, and they had equipment or priceless antiques that will never be replaced.
So the insurance companies, they could have stepped up. The town did everything they could to help everybody out.
[00:18:55] Speaker D: Can you tell me how you were able to help yourself during the disaster?
[00:19:02] Speaker E: Just try to get back into it.
Really? That's it? Just get back into it. It's going to be completely different.
So I didn't have a shop anymore in my garage. Everything was all storage in there.
Again, I used to work over at Highwood Golf Course. The golf course was completely disintegrated. And same with Okitokes. So going back to golf was really hard.
Didn't really have much Hobies outside of my kids, and my kids were struggling because their schools were shut down and stuff. So it was tough.
Just get back into it, find another hobby, find something else to talk about.
[00:19:46] Speaker D: So a lot of the time, people who've been to disasters have a kind of front door look on how you can make changes and make sure that if it happens again, it's either much lighter in the severity of the destruction. Do you have any ideas on maybe how we can stop this flooding from happening again?
[00:20:11] Speaker E: Being a natural disaster, stopping a natural disaster or having the mitigation for it is going to be extremely tough to put a barrier up of any kind. Is it a waste of money or is it just foreseeing the future that may or may not happen?
I really don't know. If it happens, it happens. All I can say is be there for your neighbor and support. Support.
Or if I have any advice for anybody, just be there for a person that needs it. Right. But don't just be in their face just for the sake of being in their face. There's a lot of people that hunt for stories. There's a lot of people that hunt for emotions. Don't do that. Just be there and be a servant for them. That's all I can say.
Don't tell them what they could have done better. They're already hurting. Just be a servant for them.
[00:21:08] Speaker D: Looking back now at the 2013 floods, how do you feel about it?
[00:21:12] Speaker E: It's there.
It's part of my history now, just like many others, I'm proud to have survived it, but it's not something I truly enjoy remembering.
Whenever I do cross anybody that was in that flood in 2013, it is pretty heartbreaking, especially with children, and those children today are teenagers or adults today.
To remember some of their expressions, to hear them crying, I can still hear them crying, I can still hear them sobbing.
I'm proud that I was part of it, but at the same time, I much rather have it gone for my memory.
[00:22:12] Speaker F: You.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: That was Mitch Mapatak, a climate survivor of the 2013 High River floods. And now we move on to share the story of Carrie Hall.
[00:22:24] Speaker C: We hear from Mitch and know his family was all split up and able to evacuate as per procedure. But there are many cases, like Carrie and her one year old son, Kingston, where they got trapped inside their home because the town flooded so rapidly.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Carrie was blindsided to know water would be flooding into her home within minutes, where her and Kingston would have to patiently wait to be rescued by farm equipment.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: Little did Carrie know this experience would show her materialistic objects can always be bought again or hold memories. But the people and family around her are what are irreplaceable. Here's my conversation with Carrie Hall.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: If you could start off by telling me a little bit more about who you are today.
[00:23:07] Speaker F: My name is Carrie Hall. I am married to my husband Keith, for 25 years. We have four children that we ultimately raised here in High River and three are now young adults out in the work world in the school world and we have one son, Kingston, at home at age ten and we're still hanging in High River.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: And could you maybe please describe a little bit about what the High River flood exactly was and the year it happened and everything?
[00:23:34] Speaker F: Well, the year was 2013 and I always remember that because Kingston was one, so thank God I had a baby at home when it happened. High river was just a small rural community that some people drive to the city and work in other areas and if not, it would be a local farm community and just your everyday little rural Alberta town.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Perfect. And then at the time of work, what were you doing during the High River flood?
[00:24:02] Speaker F: During the High River flood I was a stay at home mom raising the four kids living at home. So I was pretty much home on a daily basis.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Could you tell me more about the people you were taking care of and what the kids were all doing then and what Keith was doing and everything?
[00:24:16] Speaker F: Well, the three older kids were all in high school and junior high and Keith was working in the city and I think it just started out as a pretty normal day.
Maybe I didn't have the news on that day, but to me it was just a normal day like any others.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: And could you tell me about what High River was like before the flood had happened and then maybe just a little bit about what it was like after the flood.
[00:24:40] Speaker F: I mean, I'm originally from Saskatchewan, but I know there was always talks over the years of possible floods. But I think that in the lifetime here with anybody we knew, the floods were always very minor with some maybe backup flooding in their homes when rain levels got high an inch or two in your basement. So we actually chose to build our house in a neighborhood that was designed for 1000 year flood. So we kind of thought we were just avoiding any future problems by building a new home in this area.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Can you describe on the day how you became aware of the flooding that was about to happen?
[00:25:17] Speaker F: Well, I'm dipping into the archives a little bit here, but if my memory serves me correctly, I actually think my kids phoned me from high school and said that the kids were being sent home or they were allowed to leave class because there was some possible overland flooding. And honestly, I think that's exactly what happened. I probably had the news on, but I don't think it was the local news. So to me I was actually in shock that I should be watching for a flood.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Perfect. And then what happened next? After obviously the kids had probably come home from school and then what was the next step for you guys?
[00:25:50] Speaker F: Actually, I think the kids at the high school volunteered to go over to the it was just across the road here at the local skating rink. They went over to Sandbag and honestly, within that hour or two, everything changed.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Do you remember kind of the situation of how you guys had to evacuate specifically from this house here?
[00:26:14] Speaker F: Well, we didn't have time to evacuate because I was naive to the fact that we were going to get flooded. So once I realized the water was coming through the field by the time I realized that, I actually got word the phones were still up, the phone lines did go down, and I don't know at what point, but I knew people were starting to leave, but the water was coming over the bridge, so we were just going to hang tight because I still thought my house was going to be safe. But literally by the time I looked out in the field and kind of got my bearings, within 15 minutes it was coming up into my backyard. And within minutes the water was flowing into the house.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And I know we talked a little bit earlier too. You said that you could hear the water, like kind of downstairs and stuff coming in.
[00:27:00] Speaker F: Yeah, we were trying to plug the doors, thinking a flood is two inches of water. And then one of the strangers in my house, a very nice guy, he actually offered to go down there and the water was already up to his waist and he was trying to rip things off the walls to try to save and I could hear glass breaking, and I just said, no, just get out of there. Nothing's worth it.
15 minutes. The water was up to the first landing. Pool table was flipped over, doors were flattened, it was done. We had to put a gate across the water and by that time we couldn't get out of the neighborhood, so we actually couldn't evacuate. So it was pretty crazy. People were coming around to your doors. There were boats, little fishing boats going by, but the water was pretty raging across the river and I wasn't willing to put a one year old in a boat. And I had three little poodles and I just thought I'll just sit in the house and just kind of see if there's a safer exit.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Yes. So how did you eventually end up getting out?
[00:27:56] Speaker F: It was about 08:00 that night. The combines and some big heavy equipment, front end loaders. I got out on a front end loader. There was combines and then are they a manure spreader? I can't remember. But there was a few large pieces of equipment that they actually went to the dealerships in town and demanded they start up the new equipment, the new combines to get in, because they knew with the tires being big enough, they could get through the water, so they couldn't cross the bridge. They could go around another route like down by the grocery store, and they all started coming in and people started getting in the equipment and with their backpacks what they could carry. And most pets were left behind. I happened to have all these people in my house, so they all took a dog and I took my kid. And that's how we got out. And then the helicopters were landing on that side, but that was basically your only way out. A lot of people did go on the little boat, but I wasn't comfortable going on it. I'm like, no, I'm safe in my house. I'll just stay here till I feel safe.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: And what was it like getting on? I'm assuming you guys were in the buckets of the front end loaders. What was it like getting into a front end loader bucket and being carried out of high river? Like, where did they even end up taking you guys?
[00:29:03] Speaker F: That was a little bit OD. Well, I had a fellow, he was an RCMP, and his wife actually was a nanny for me. And he was on the bucket with me, which was kind of comforting. And he helped with Kingston. And it was very surreal because you're really looking around literally 2 hours ago, 3 hours ago, thinking, where did this come from? Nobody saw it coming, especially to our neighborhood. So actually it was just surreal. And they just took us up the hill a little bit to dry land, and vehicles were lined up. By that time, he had no phone lines. I didn't know where my husband was because he never made it back to town.
I found out later he did start up a front end loader, one of ours, bring it to town, and he did get in a boat with somebody and he tried to get over to the house, but they got hung up on the fences, so they actually got turned around. So he was worried about me in Kingston. But anyway, when we got up there, we have a construction company and he'd sent a bunch of trucks to town. So they actually radioed him to say that we were out and he was out saving other people.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Perfect. And then did you guys end up going to stay somewhere else after?
[00:30:11] Speaker F: Yeah, we have a farm just outside of town, so the trucks drove us to town. Keith continued to work into the night with our front end loader, and he actually ended up being down. He was one of the last people left in town and he was delivering supplies over to the hospital because the patients were still in at that time. And I know he was helping one of the local doctors out at his house because he had been flooded and he was only a couple inches of water. But if he could, around the clock, keep the flow out of his house. So Keith was actually delivering fuel to him for the next couple days in the front end motor and the supplies to. The hospital until they got all the patients out. So we went to our farm. It gave up our farmhouse to actually the local RCMP and his family and we stayed in our motor home and the other couples that followed stayed in the farmhouse for a night or two. And I think a couple of them went out and bought motorhomes and RVs the next day and they lived at our place for the next probably six weeks anyway till people could get back in and assess and do cleanups.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not awesome, but scary. And do you remember anything of it? Part of it being like what was the scariest part of the whole during process of it? I know you said your kids went to help in sandbag and stuff, too. Did they make it up to the.
[00:31:24] Speaker F: Farm and everything out to the farm later? Couldn't contact them. But actually the two kids that were going to a rural school at the time, they went down to the Hutterite colony and they were taken care of and fed and the Hutterites that live close to us are good friends of ours. They delivered up milk for me for our little guy who's still in a bottle and yeah, it was a great community. I mean, you kind of went back to old school ways of somebody driving to somebody's house because the cell phones were down for probably 24 hours before those were even up. So it was a lot of just old fashioned ways of driving and hoping you see somebody there. To be really honest, when I left this house on that front end loader, and this sounds really crazy, my goal was just to get to the highway. I was going to walk to the highway with Kingston and we were going to try to hitchhike back to our farm. But I didn't realize because I was in this neighborhood, that when I got out there was people waiting for people. So you didn't think about that because you were kind of thinking of how am I going to get out of here? What was I thinking?
[00:32:30] Speaker B: And then could you describe what you remember happening to you after all of the crazy and madness after we got.
[00:32:36] Speaker F: Back to the farm? And you basically lay in bed and you just count your blessings that everybody was accounted for in my family and friends.
You kind of think you're just going to go back to your house the next day, but I think it was approximately three weeks before we could actually get back into the house and assess the damage. I was saying earlier, Keith was able you couldn't come back town unless you had a pass and you were working in the town for safety reasons, but he was able to come in with the front end loader. And I do know he came over to our house and opened up windows and doors and emptied a freezer just to mitigate some food destroying floorboards and try to lessen the mold growth in the houses, because we knew mold would be growing. So we figured doors were being if you guys heard in the media, doors were being kicked down, and we were like, we don't want to unlock everything. Open it up, open the windows. At this point, doesn't much matter. Save as much of the house as you can. Keep it as dry as you can. So we just did that and came in to a wet, musty smelling town.
[00:33:41] Speaker C: Yeah, kind of leading into that.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Can you describe any of the sights.
[00:33:45] Speaker C: Or sounds and smells that you remember.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: From after the flood and coming back into town? Obviously, after those three weeks, you come back to an entire different war zone of life, as you would say.
[00:33:55] Speaker F: Yeah, I think it was like apocalyptic times where you just see people's houses dumped into their backyards and mud and mock and rubber boots and hazmat suits. Like it literally was a scene out of a movie. And I do remember coming in.
We were insured. They basically insured us relatively soon. Once all the companies started to jump on board, we kind of checked our damages and felt it could wait till insurance could come by and get a proper team in to do it. So for me, I came in. I think I was in shock. I think I could have saved a few more things, but at the time, it just looked like such a mess. I went down into the basement a few times in rubber boots to see if there was anything salvageable.
But in my mind at the time, there was nothing that was salvageable. There might have been a handful of items salvageable, but you couldn't see it because it was just such a mess. So we left until they started doing the cleanup in our yard, and then I would come back and assess them. And then at one point, all my stuff was in my backyard.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: And I know you kind of spoke a little bit earlier on this, but you said there was only a few handful of things that you did want to salvage and stuff, and was there anything that you lost that really meant, like, something meaningful to you?
[00:35:09] Speaker F: Yeah, actually, you can lose hot tubs, and it came through the basement window when the pool table was destroyed. But none of that really mattered. I think for me, it was little things like, from my grandmother, like a bible and grandma's doll clothes she made back in the maybe a collection of Barbies from the Mean. Nothing doesn't really has no value other than memories and your childhood. But I don't miss anything else that I lost because I could replace that. So other than that, that's really all that mattered.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And could you describe what the effect of the river flood actually had on you?
[00:35:48] Speaker F: I think we handled it the best we could. My kids were strong. Keith was strong. We just basically counted our blessings and realized at the end of the day, nothing really matters if you don't have your family and your loved ones. So for us, you can part with that stuff, because everybody was okay. Because some people did lose their lives. There wasn't a lot, but it was enough that the people that lost their lives in this community, I mean, people knew who they were, and they could have been saved, but I think nobody knew what to do. It was just I don't think and then when you don't have communication, lines go down, and then people were checking on maybe a few people that weren't as capable of getting out, and those are the people that lost their lives. They just physically had disabilities or whatnot.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Could you describe what effect the hybrid flood had on people?
[00:36:36] Speaker C: You know?
[00:36:37] Speaker F: Oh, I think it affected a lot of people deeply. I just think how people internalize it and what their losses were compared to my losses. I don't believe it comes with a dollar value, although for some people it might, because I think there were people that didn't get insurance if they were renters or whatnot, maybe they weren't discovered. So I think you saw some financial setbacks for people financial setbacks for people whose homes were in worse shape than mine. Doesn't matter if you get insured for it. You still have to relocate.
A lot of people moved away, so that was probably what I witnessed. And still today, I guess there's some people that have a tough time telling the story.
I don't have a tough time. It's a learning curve. But if you know now, you know what you'd do in the future.
[00:37:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: And what would that be for you?
[00:37:26] Speaker F: I think there's a way to save homes. Not everybody's house, but I have a walkout basement, so I actually think you watch a lot of those places, like Florida and down into the Caribbean. They get a lot of hurricanes. There are ways to know if you get big storms, buttoning up windows. And I actually think that's possible in some of the homes. I feel quite comfortable with the work that they've done around the town for me, but I don't know if it's bomb proof in the sense I think High River would be spared for the most part if there was ever to be another flood. But I think that water still has to go somewhere, and I would worry for the local farms around us. That would be my concern.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And looking back on the High River flood, how do you feel about it now?
[00:38:09] Speaker F: It's the past. It's the past. You move forward. They say after about five years, people typically forget about it. And I can honestly say we're coming up on ten years in April, I guess it was June. I think most people have forgotten about it because we're getting lots of people move back to High River and I don't worry about it.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Do you think it has not benefited the community but in a sense High River before and after, if you look at it, have changed drastically, obviously, and there's lots of new stores popping up and lots of renovations have happened, just the town itself. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:38:44] Speaker F: I think overall as a community, it brought people closer. I think your disaster management teams always being putting. You've got a great town council, a great mayor, and every year they are doing that work and monitoring systems no different than if you were hit by a tsunami.
A lot of people didn't know, we know what can happen now. So when you know what can happen, you can just the preparedness in the town and people work together. They spread the word. There's always signs every spring they're monitoring those levels. So I think as a community it brings you together because the people that stuck around, they've all been through it now, so just preparedness.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: And do you think that brings some sort of hope for the future if this was to ever happen again?
[00:39:31] Speaker F: Oh, absolutely. I don't think it will be as bad because of the work that they did put into it. The money was spent, they allowed more money for flood relief, lots of big berms. They did take out some big communities that they moved the homes out of, probably to help with that. Yeah, I mean, moving forward, I think it could happen again. Never say never, but I would hope it's not going to be as bad.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: If it did.
[00:40:00] Speaker C: That'S. Carrie hall, a climate disaster survivor of the 2013 High River, Alberta floods.
Thanks for listening to Weathering the Storm. I'm Brooke Palin.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: And I'm colton tufts.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: This is a series powered by Shaw and a part of the Community Podcast Initiative based out of Mount Royal University.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: It was produced on the lands that are home to the Natitsapi iyahe Nakota Sutina and people. We recognize the stewards of these lands and we hope to contribute to a better understanding of our environment by sharing the stories of those affected by climate change.
[00:40:41] Speaker C: Special thanks to our partner, the climate disaster project, and to Mitch Mapatak and Kerry Hall for joining us.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: You can learn more about the climate disaster
[email protected].
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Be sure to subscribe to the show to hear the latest Weathering the Storm and discover new podcasts from the Community Podcast Initiative at thepodcaststudio CA.
