• Whitemud Drive, Yellowhead Trail, Groat Road and Connors Road all closed by water.
• 37,700 EPCOR customers lost power in a single night.
• A sinkhole more than 10 metres deep opened in Lauderdale.
• City crews have handled over 3,000 storm problems, including more than 1,400 calls in one week.
• Calgary sent certified forestry crews north under a mutual aid agreement.

When Calgary flooded in 2013, Edmonton sent 60 volunteer firefighters, heavy equipment, street sweepers and bridge inspectors south. That was the first time the two cities ever used that agreement.

When the glaciers melted, a lake covered this whole area. It left behind metres of fine silt and clay. Whitemud Creek is named for it.

Clay does not let water pass through easily. So rain stops near the surface instead of draining down, then travels sideways, often following the trenches dug for pipes. Moving water carries the fine silt along with it.

1. Water moves underground beside a pipe.
2. It washes the fine silt out with it.
3. An empty space is left under the pavement.
4. A load crosses the top and the road drops.

Wet ground freezes, and ice takes up more room than the water it came from. Saturated soil swells and lifts the pavement above it. When it thaws, the road drops back and cracks. That is how potholes are made.

Next summer the clay dries and shrinks back. Ground that swelled all winter settles unevenly. Expect cracked pavement and sunken patches. Some foundations and sidewalks will shift as well.

Soaked soil also loses the small spaces between particles that tree roots grip. That is why healthy trees have been coming down in wind that would normally do nothing.

• Slow. Dry ponds, rain gardens, tree soil cells and porous paving. This is the largest part of the plan.
• Move. Bigger sewers and tunnels, and splitting combined storm and sewage pipes.
• Secure. Flood proofing for 6,000 high risk properties and outreach to 40,000 more homes.
• Predict. Sensors and automatic gates at ponds and underpasses, on a live dashboard fed by weather radar.
• Respond. Barriers and diversions when a storm hits, run with the City's emergency team.

A park or ball diamond that quietly fills during a storm and drains in about a day. Water goes there instead of into your basement. There are 31 planned, with $470 million set aside for them.

• Complete: Parkallen, Ermineskin, Steinhauer
• Under construction: Ottewell, Lauderdale
• Next: Rossdale, for rain gardens and tree cells

The plan received a Canada's Clean50 Top Project Award and a second as an Individual Honouree. The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction featured Edmonton's approach nationally. Work with the Canadian Water Network and the Insurance Bureau of Canada made Edmonton a test case for whether insurance flood modelling can guide municipal engineering decisions.

Five reports were put in the public domain specifically so other communities could copy the method. The plan helped remove the assumption that green infrastructure is a soft alternative to real engineering.

• EPCOR reports for the plan cost, the $470 million pond allocation, and the $350 million spent.
• Statistics Canada for the rise in construction costs since 2019, which was about 42 per cent.
• An industry range of 10 to 20 per cent added for compressing a build into fewer years.
• An assumption that homes carry about half the total, spread across roughly 450,000 households.

The last one is the softest assumption and I have asked EPCOR to confirm it. Commercial and industrial properties pay stormwater by lot area too, and they hold large lots. If their share is bigger, every monthly figure drops.

The City committed to two million net new trees. The deadline was originally 2050. It was pulled forward to 2030, at a cost of about $114 million, with roughly $48 million expected from Canada's 2 Billion Trees program.

Getting to 20 per cent canopy needs 421,500 new maintained boulevard and open space trees plus 1,400 hectares of new natural areas. The current urban forest already delivers about $176 million a year in benefits.

Since 2014, about 280 hectares of City parkland have been naturalized or started the process. Edmonton has been doing this for more than 25 years. Naturalized ground around stormwater ponds helps those ponds hold water in heavy rain.

In 2021 the City began naturalizing 150 hectares around 148 stormwater ponds. That was paused in 2022 and mowing restarted in some areas while public engagement was done and a new plan developed. The City moved faster than residents were ready for and went back to ask. Fall 2026 planting is focused on the southwest, east of the river.

1. The City applies to the province first.
2. The province approves or refuses that application.
3. If it is approved, the City tells residents they can apply.
4. Homeowners and small businesses then apply directly.

You cannot apply until the City is approved, so watch for the notice. The City has already filed for June's storms, claiming about $26 million in damage that insurance does not cover, and will file for July by the end of August. The province pays up to 90 per cent of eligible costs.

1. Call your insurer before you throw anything out.
2. Photograph everything, including water lines on walls.
3. Keep every receipt for cleanup and repair.
4. Report flooding and damage to 311.
5. Check whether you carry both sewer backup and overland coverage.

• A free flood prevention inspection, booked online. These are backed up, so book early.
• A backwater valve subsidy of up to $800. Homes built after 1989 already have a valve.
• The RainWise rebate for rain barrels and downspout work.
• A lower stormwater rate if your lot is set up to hold its own water.