By Jaryn Vecchio
Athabasca River // Photo taken by McMurray Aviation
April’s flood is being ranked as Canada’s third-biggest weather story of 2020.
Environment Canada released a top 10 list on Wednesday with the community’s evacuation being put in the top three.
The flood forced around 13,000 people to evacuate, while also damaging around 1,200 properties.
David Phillips, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Senior Climatologist, says adding the COVID-19 pandemic made this a crazy situation to deal with.
“It was probably one of the very first natural disasters in the world that faced a pandemic-timed situation.”
Shortly after the flood, the province temporarily relaxed COVID-19 measures to allow residents to help emergency personnel. This included multiple individuals who put ug sandbags to help protect the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre.