Day of transition for flood-ravaged High River
Posted Aug 8, 2013 7:48 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Thursday is a day of transition for High River residents, struggling to get their flood-ravaged town back on its feet.
Families who were forced out of their homes for an extended period to wait for repairs to be made, will start moving into temporary housing.
The Emergency Department is also finally re-opening inside the town hospital.
The facility, however, still has a long way to go before it’s back operating at 100 per cent.
Provincial officials say they’re using a phased-in approach when it comes to restoring services to the building.
It won’t be fully operational until mid-September when they bring cancer care back to the Alberta community.
“Having access to emergency services in their community again is critical to the residents of High River,” says MLA Rick Fraser, Associate Minister of Regional Recovery and Reconstruction. “Progress is being made to re-open community physician practices.”
Progress in the town may not be being made fast enough for some who live in the flood ravaged area.
Wednesday night left many residents upset with what they heard from provincial officials at an information meeting.
Homeowners from Hampton Hills, a neighbourhood that sat underwater for several weeks, were told they would not be bought out of their property, and they will have to re-build.
One man tells City News, he believes they’re being treated unfairly.
“They admitted publicly that they sacrificed the Hamptons, now they want us to go back and remediate our homes… to a house that’s worth nothing,” he says.
“Our home sat much longer, with much more damage…. they’re like grow-ops,” another woman says. “A lot of these homes are having to be taken right down to the studs or right down to the ground.”
Several students may not be back in class for the first day of school.
Christ the Redeemer School District is reporting that two of its schools, Holy Spirit and Notre Dame, need extensive repairs.
As a result, classrooms will be moved to nearby portables.
Notre Dame students will be out until at least January, while Holy Spirit could be without their building for the entire year.
