Premier Alison Redford says she will be lifting the state of emergency in the flood-stricken Town of High River as scheduled, but won’t be leaving them on their own.
Over 90 percent of the community has returned to their homes, but there is concern about if people should be allowed to rebuild their homes considering the extreme risk of future flooding.
More than 5,200 homes and businesses were damaged in the flooding in late June and many of those will need to be bulldozed and rebuilt.
Redford says the province is taking everything into consideration about what to do about communities like High River which are consistently in the path of disaster.
She also said that even with the state of emergency lifted and control of the community placed back into the hands of mayor and councilors, the province will continue to provide all the support they can.
“But as that State of Emergency ends, I want to make sure that I leave everyone on High River with a very clear message, we are not going anywhere. Every one of the people who is in this emergency operations centre today, will be at work tomorrow morning, and they will be at work on the weekend and they will be at work on Monday because this is only another stage in what comes next for rebuilding High River,” said Redford.
The premier said that 30,000 volunteers poured into High River alone to help with recovery efforts and there is still a need for more assistance.
“The work isn’t done. There’s still a critical need for volunteers and I want to reiterate that. So if you can come please do,” said the premier.
Redford says they have issued 36,000 debit cards so far to southern Albertans who were affected by flooding.
They also moved $50 M into the Town of High River’s operating fund to keep it going and Redford says her government is committed to recovery and rebuilding in those communities that were affected.
“As a government we’ve stood side-by-side with Albertans with communities right across southern Alberta and in Fort McMurray to respond to these flooding disasters. We moved quickly to get money into the hands of Albertans where it was needed the most,” said Redford.
Over 20,000 tons of debris has been hauled away from High River so far which is equivalent to the volume of garbage removed from the community over the past ten years.
