Floodwaters destroy reserve properties

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River floodwaters rampaged through reserves in southwestern Alberta in early June, leaving in their wake washed-out roadways, mud-caked residences and homeless families.

Disaster relief workers report most residents had time to move to higher ground and while there were no causalities some reserves lost livestock. The Peigan Nation has tallied a total of 153 cattle and horses lost so far.

A few reserves were forced to boil drinking water from wells and pump out septic tanks.

Three reserves, Peigan, Siksika and Eden Valley, were hit hard.

A Siksika First Nation golf course was underwater at the flood's peak and four Peigan Nation homes were destroyed.

"With the write-offs we may be looking at (rebuilding the homes) at a new location," says Noreen Plain Eagle, a spokesperson at the Peigan Nation's public utilities office, which is organizing disaster relief.

"Those are the ones with no basement so the water came half-way up the wall."

Fifteen families living along a low-lying, eight-kilometre stretch beside the Oldman River were evacuated from the reserve to Pincher Creek on Tuesday, June 6. By daybreak the next day the racing waters had peaked.

Fed by melting snow and heavy rains in the mountains, the Oldman and Bow Rivers overflowed their banks in dozens of other communities. Flood relief in the millions of dollars has been promised by the federal and provincial governments.

Six of the 15 Peigan houses damaged sustained extensive water and structural damage to their basements.

One week after the disaster only half of the 15 families had returned home. The rest were staying with friends or in the nearby Brocket townsite at four duplexes owned by the nation. They could expect to return over the next month, says Plain Eagle.

There was still no electricity, gas or drinkable water at some homes.

Power lines were cut by falling trees and the gas had been turned off for safety reasons, says Plain Eagle.

Total damage costs are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Elders remember the last major flooding in 1956 and before that in 1929.

The Siksika First Nation is also looking a major repair work, but of a different kind.

Only one home on the reserve was hit but the greens at their adjacent Hidden Valley Golf Course sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in water damage while submerged under the waters of the Bow River.

"The number 2 hole took most of the damage as it's on the corner of the river and got gouged out," says tribal councillor Adrian Stimson Jr.

Clean-up will involve washing the mud off the grass, then pumping it out, he says.

But for the tribe the most serious set-back will be the closure of one of their major assets for almost two months at the peak of summer.

At the same time he explains that the tribe co-manages the course with an association representing summer cottage owners who live on the greens and it is that group which must actually pick up any losses for the season.

The course's operation and costs are in the hand of the association which leases it and pay a yearly fee to the tribe out of the profits, he says.

He acknowledges it's likely the group may approach the tribe for financial help at some point if the province doesn't step in.

At the Eden Valley Reserve, half of the 500 residents and all of the Elders evacuated themselves to nearby towns of Turner Valley and Black Diamond to the north.

Residents faced a strong possibility of being cut off from road links if their sole bridge washed out across the Highwood River.

"We were quite worried about the old bridge but it hung in there and we're all OK, says band secretary Charlene Lefton. Like many others who rushed off, with the band pay-roll due the next day she scurried across the bridge with it as the water began rising more than a half metre each hour.

All the next day more than a half-metre of floodwater washed over the 60-year-old one-lane bridge.

In her memory the water level under the bridge had never been ny more than one metre from touching.

"There were a lot of things floating by-old fridges and stoves-and when they hit the bridge they smashed into pieces.

"It was really something and I'm sure we'll be telling our grandchildren about it for years," she says.

Elders were put up in motels while others slept overnight at the Black Diamond school.

The majority of clean-up work involves "that big mess on the islands in the river," she says.

In other natural disasters this spring and early summer many reserves were evacuated in northern Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and northwestern Ontario as forest fires pushed to within three metres of some homes, say First Nations staff.