$5 billion price-tag for flood damages could have been reduced if Alberta followed report recommendations

Back in 2005, after flooding in Alberta cost four people their lives and an estimated $400 million in damages, the province took action, putting together a special committee to look into how they could minimize losses in future floods. However, although that report was completed in November of 2006, it only reached public eyes as of last year, leaving many to wonder if any of the recommendations have been carried through on.

According to a Canadian Press article about the report:

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The report doesn't mention anything about moving communities (however, Minister Griffith probably wasn't trying to suggest that it did), but it does recommend producing a set of flood risk maps for the province which would be kept updated regularly, improving the collection of flood data using different monitoring techniques, improving forecasting to provide warnings for flooding events, and keeping the public informed — not only with historic flood information, but also whether they live in or are buying property in a flood risk zone.

"In my opinion, if this report had been implemented, I sincerely believe that the damage we are seeing right now could have been reduced," Paul Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, said to The Canadian Press. "I thought this report did a really good job covering the right topics and offering very specific advice on what should be done."

The biggest mistake the province made, apparently, was to ignore the committee's recommendations to stop selling crown lands in known flood risk areas and to stop providing assistance to new developments in known flood risk areas.

"The one thing they could have done … they should have stopped building some housing and buildings on the flood plains," said George Groeneveld, the former MLA of Highwater who headed up the report committee, according to CBC News.

"If you’re going to build in those areas, you take on the responsibility yourself. That to me was the strength of the report — stop building where we shouldn't be building."

The total cost of implementing the report's recommendations? An estimated $300 million across 54 municipalities, according to CBC News.

However, now, over six and a half years after that committee's report was completed, with no less than 18 different recommendations to the province, here we are watching recovery efforts from yet another major flood in Alberta, which not only cost another four people their lives, but Alberta Premier Alison Redford has already pledged $1 billion just to start the recovery efforts and BMO Nesbitt Burns is saying the total cost of the flood may get as high as $5 billion!

The mitigation efforts wouldn't have stopped all the damages, of course, but with the costs of this flood estimated at over 10 times what the one in 2005 cost, that $300 million would have been a wise investment.

[ More Geekquinox: Alberta floods permanently alter Rocky Mountains, foothills and rivers ]

Hopefully, as the recovery efforts progress from this latest disaster, the government can learn from this lesson and do something to prevent things from getting this bad, or worse, in the future. Given that these types of flooding events are forecast to become even more common in years to come, as the planet continues to warm up due to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it's better to make the wise investment now then have to be looking back at yet another opportunity when the next big flood hits.

"You can't stop the rain from falling or the flood from striking," said Kovacs, "but if you anticipate and invest ahead of time and manage these risks appropriately, they don't need to become disasters."

(Photo courtesy: Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)

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