'Rain, rain go away!' Was heard by many this morning (June 21), as parts of our town looked more accessible by canoe than a motorized vehicle.

Suzanne Gaida, Deputy CAO for the Town of Cochrane, shares as of 2:30 this afternoon, all residential areas are open and for the most part, huge pools of standing water have completely drained or are subsiding. "As of right now, all the water has been drained out of Sunset Ridge, and they were doing clean up of the roads because there was a lot of sediment and debris left after the waters subsided. The water itself is flowing as it should with the storm system now, and while the ponds are high, they are releasing as they should. In Glenbow, Glenbow Drive is now open. We will be monitoring the situation, but as of now, everything is back to normal. In Heritage Hills, Heritage Gate is open. The pond is now behaving, is not over capacity and draining as it should."

When it comes to Cochrane's parks and pathways, residents should avoid areas that are closed and barricaded off, as well as, use caution. "There is still a lot of water in the parks. Our creeks are running very high and flooding over their banks, the Ranche is closed, and many of our pathways are closed, specifically, around the underpasses and along the creek areas. We do have barricades up and we are asking people to stay away."

While Cochrane surely got pounded by a good amount of rain over the last 24 hour period, Gaida, says as of now the Bow River and Jumping Pound Creek are holding their own.  "The river is running high and we have been in contact with River Forecasting through the government and they are not anticipating any higher flows than they are now in the next 24 to 48 hours. We have also been watching Jumping Pound Creek, and no flooding is anticipated in that area either at this point. We will continue to monitor those areas over the weekend, as well as, any of our storm systems."

A number of crews came together and moved swiftly this morning to mitigate as much damage as they could, shares Gaida. "We had lots of our infrastructure staff and park staff out. We had some sandbagging that we were doing in the Glenbow area. We had RCMP and Municipal Enforcement out controlling traffic in areas where we needed to keep traffic out or around large puddles. Our road crew was out working on the storm system, our water team was working in Glenbow pumping stuff, and our Civil Land group was out looking at storm ponds and making sure they were functioning properly as well as sloughing on some of our hills."

As far as damage goes, Gaida has limited knowledge as to what that looks like right now. "I know people affected will have to individually contact their insurance providers and see what coverage they do have, and work through the process that way."

While clean up continues; the town will investigate why, and if possible, how to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. "We are still looking into it, but there was a lot of sediment on the roads when the water subsided. So what that can do is potentially block the storm drains, and with the flow being so much we believe some of that sediment got in which can cause the system to clog. I think the other part is the rain came so fast and so hard, that it took a lot of dirt with it."

When all is said and done, Gaida says the town will continue to work with all community developers to ensure their sediment and erosion control pieces are in fact working well. 

Gaida gave kudos to all those who helped with the flooding this morning, including Sunset Ridge developer Melcor who helped resolve storm drain isseus and clean up, as well as, Cochrane Fire Services for being the first to respond. 

"We can't control Mother Nature but we are always ready with our emergency plan and it works well and effectively. We will of course look at if there is anything we could do differently in the future but certainly we are always ready should anything happen in our community."