From the ruins: Municipal leaders reflect on challenges, lessons learned from 2013 floods
Posted Jun 21, 2023 8:19 am.
Last Updated Jun 21, 2023 8:22 am.
Thousands of Albertans rose to the occasion, helping one another through very difficult circumstances one decade ago.
One of those people was Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
Nenshi was in Toronto at the time for a friend’s wedding when he got work there was about to be a massive flood event here at home.
Without hesitation, he authorized the first-ever state of local emergency in Calgary, signed by the deputy mayor.
For the next few hours, he managed the response from thousands of kilometers away before he caught a flight home.
Then, he was rushed to the Emergency Operations Centre where, for days, he was focused on keeping people safe and getting them out of high-risk areas.
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Years later, one thing stands out to the former mayor about how Calgarians responded.
“I’m reminded that we’re so much stronger when we look after one another and when we work together and that for me, is the biggest lesson that I’ll always remember and that I hope to continue to inspire people, even in these difficult times, to continue to do things for one another,” he said.
Nenshi says one thing that has stuck with him after all this time, the image burned into his brain, is the water.
“I’ve never heard it so loud and so angry and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw how high it was and that was the first time that I actually allowed myself to feel a little bit scared,” he recalled.
Despite the disaster, Calgary rallied together, and the Stampede was held that year.
“They said, ‘Come hell or high water, we’re going to have the Stampede’ and I said, ‘Well, we’re here to help you,'” Nenshi said. “Exactly two weeks later, I was on my horse at the front of the Stampede parade, going down streets that had been flooded just 14 days earlier, going through a downtown that had been closed.
“For me that was deeply meaningful, it just reminded me that we as Calgarians — when we put our minds to it and we work together, we can do anything.”
As the former mayor led the charges in the days, weeks, and months of rebuilding that followed, he was joined by thousands of eager volunteers, ready to make a difference in their community.
He says that still inspires him.
“It reminds us of a lesson we’ve always known — that we’re stronger together,” said Nenshi.
South of Calgary, in High River, Mayor Craig Snodgrass led the rebuild after the town was decimated by the flood.
High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass in an undated CityNews file photo.
Snodgrass says years later, the flood is still a sensitive topic for people in the area. But he is proud to say the town has been built back up, and with hundreds of millions of dollars of mitigation done, it’s become a poster-child for how community could rebuild after a disaster.
“Flood mitigation is finished, downtown has a completely different look and people are loving it,” he said. “Even those that didn’t love the change and are starting to understand and they’re enjoying what the changes are downtown but it’s pretty incredible what we were able to achieve and there’s lots of reasons we were able to get to that stage.”
The mayor adds he is proud to call High River home, but he is more proud of the people who worked together to build from the ruins.
“To all the volunteers that came in and pitched in and helped us get this place up and running so quickly — huge kudos, huge thanks, and we all very much appreciate it, and thank you,” he said.
