The light precipitation in the Westman area over the past few days has melted the large amounts of snow faster than was anticipated, resulting in many roadways seeing overland flooding and damage.  Bridges are also under scrutiny as some bridges have seen structural damage due to the high water pressure and ice floes.

Killarney-Turtle Mountain Municipality Mayor Rick Pauls, says they are taking emergency measures to barricade damaged roads and bridges and to notify residents of potential hazards.

“It’s definitely not a good situation, it’s transitioned extremely fast. With the amount of snow that we had we had we knew we would be having an awful lot of water this spring and our best case-scenario was that it would melt extremely, extremely gradually."

"That hasn’t been the case for the past several days. So we are seeing an extremely fast melt happening and our infrastructure can’t handle it.”

By Friday morning a number of roads have been damaged with overland flooding, by early Friday morning 26 miles of road have been blocked off in the Killarney municipality.  “This is almost 10% of our roads so this is a fast acting situation but we are keeping on top of it.”

Paul says they are using technology to their advantage, instructing residents to go to the municipal website and to their website page. “We are giving updates as they come in. We are getting them barricaded and we are keeping a watch on certain areas that have the potential to overflow next."

"But if people see something out there that is not blocked off or barricaded please contact the municipal office."  

"We can’t be on all 300 something miles of road at the same time so we some extra eyes and ears to let us know what’s going on.”

“We have lost one structure in particular in an area that never had an issue in over 20 years. We haven’t had water like this for many, many years."  "Now the ice is starting to move so we’re watching for ice dams building up as well so we’re going to have some challenges here over the next several days and possibly weeks.”

Pauls cautions that the water is flowing very fast and is extremely cold, and drivers and water-watchers should be extremely careful when near water at this time.

Go to  www.killarney.cato contact the Killarney-Turtle Mountain Municipality for more information on road barricades and to notify the municipality of damaged and dangerous roadways. 

Please contact your municipality on road conditions and closures as the situation evolves.