Calgary Flood

As I sit here dry and warm, the rain drums on the skylight in the ceiling of my study. Normally this is a soothing sound. Today it serves to remind me of the 100,000 Calgarians who have been evacuated from their homes because the Bow and the Elbow rivers are in full flood. There are helicopter shots on the TV networks and Facebook and Twitter are full of photos of devastation. Many people have asked how they can help and Mayor Nenshi has requested that we simply stay home and leave the streets which are not flooded to emergency vehicles. Tempting as it is to go out and do something or just to look, we are staying put.

We are lucky. Our foundation was patched last year in the course of our basement renovation and the drainage from next to the house was improved. We live on a hill, not the highest in the city, but quite far up from the river. So far, we are okay.

We talked to my father-in-law this morning and he said there has been nothing like this in his lifetime. There certainly has been nothing like it in mine. It is a strange surreal experience to see video images of the pathways where I trained for so many races now completely under water. Friends who just moved to Bowness in the last week or so have had to evacuate their new home which is now flooded, and, although the Bow has supposedly crested, it continues to rain. One Facebook post announced that the water had reached row 14 in the Saddle Dome in Stampede Park.

The route my walking buddy and I take on Mondays includes walking over the top of the Glenmore dam on the Elbow River. Water is now coming over the top of the dam and there is a huge lake behind the dam. I do not know this city in which I was born and raised.

All this water reminds me that, although we can do marvellous things with our technology and our engineering, we are no match for the sheer power of the natural world. It's easy to forget that. I am shocked by the devastation but also humbled by the realization that people in all parts of the world experience this sort of thing regularly. And so, as I listen to the rain I will stay inside and be grateful to those who are working for the good of the city, for those who have done without sleep for so many hours so they can pluck people from their homes, for the employees who pump water from the basement of the water treatment plant so our drinking water is not compromised. We human beings can be incredibly good to each other and one of the results of a situation like this is that it brings out that good.