evacuation warnings south of Fort McMurray<\/a> were over.<\/p>\n\u201cDefinitely the mitigation worked. That has been put in place, prevented loss in the community and flooding,\u201d Butz told CBC News. \u201cWe would be flooding. This type of water volume this year would have impacted our community once again.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some parks and rural roads south of Fort McMurray and along the Clearwater River flooded on April 28, Butz says homes were protected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fort McMurray has spent more than $240 million on building a network of berms and barriers to protect low-lying areas from flooding. Most of the work is complete and gaps are being filled with temporary inflatable flood berms. Construction is expected to be finished by 2028, with a total price tag of $270 million.<\/p>\n
Draper, a community south of Fort McMurray that was on evacuation notice, is not protected by berms. Instead, the municipality offered residents in low-lying areas buyouts or grants to raise their homes above the flood line.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778453669_640_default.jpg\")
A flooded boat launch near downtown Fort McMurray on April 28. (Jamie Malbeuf\/CBC)<\/p>\n
The flood mitigation work was ramped up after the community about 430 kilometres north of Edmonton suffered devastating flooding in April 2020. The flood triggered an evacuation of more than 15,000 people,\u00a0 with more than $520 million in insured damages were reported to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.<\/p>\n
This year, water levels on the Clearwater River rose by more than five metres at the peak, compared to roughly eight metres during the 2020 flood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A municipal spokesperson says the river this year reached parts of the flood mitigation system but never broke through. <\/p>\n
Butz says flaws in the municipality\u2019s sewage system that allowed flood waters to reach basements and underground parking sites in 2020 have been repaired.<\/p>\n
Mayor hopes barriers restore confidence in downtown<\/p>\n
Mayor Sandy Bowman said he hopes this year\u2019s spring melt shows residents and businesses that they can count on the RMWB\u2019s flood protection system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had investment come here, but I think this will show they\u2019re not in a flood zone. Basically, that the protection is there,\u201d said Bowman. \u201cWhen permanent flood mitigation is finished, I think that will show the downtown is protected. It may actually increase investment in downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents and businesses in flood zones expressed relief that the berms held.\u00a0But there was also some nervousness as this was the first test of the new berms along the Clearwater River.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Would bombing ice jams work in Fort McMurray?:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778453669_741_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Is bombing ice jams a viable option in Fort McMurray?<\/p>\n
Fort McMurray is again faced with a jammed river, and rising waters. It has some in the community asking: Why can’t we just bomb the ice? Jamie Malbeuf has the answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see water coming down and whatever they\u2019re doing is working. It\u2019s so hard to tell and until things happen and it rises again, we\u2019ll see,\u201d said Geri Hardisty in an interview last week.<\/p>\n
Hardisty saw most of her neighbours in the community of Waterways leave after the 2016 Horse River wildfire and the 2020 flood.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes a big difference. As much as we all looked at it and said \u2018no, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s gonna work,\u2019 I don\u2019t know. I really don\u2019t know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Steven Crowe, another Waterways resident, said the potential for flooding makes spring a nervous time for many of his neighbours. He said he hopes the berms will withstand any future flooding.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalking to the neighbours around here, most of them are kind of just desensitized or not really interested in any of it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can only do it so many times.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-661049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n