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    • 'We're gonna have a flood': Naheed Nenshi recalls 2013 flood, 10 years later

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    The man who was leading Calgary through its most vulnerable point says there is a lot to be proud of what's been done and learned since the 2013 flood.

    "It feels like it was 100 years ago and it feels like it was just yesterday," former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi said during an interview with CTV News on Tuesday.

    "Seeing those images now reminds me of the very perilous situation that we were in but also how the community responded so very well."

    On June 20, 2013, three weather systems combined to bring a massive volume of rain to the Calgary region and the Rocky Mountains to the west.

    Approximately 220 millimetres of rain fell there, dissolving a heavy spring snowpack and leading to a deluge of water and debris.

    Nenshi says he was informed about the situation when he was in Toronto on business.

    "I was giving a breakfast speech, very early in the morning, and I got hauled off stage by my chief of staff and was told, 'You have to speak to Bruce Burrell."

    Burrell was the chief of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency at the time.

    "It's never good when Bruce wants to reach you at 5 a.m. Calgary time," Nenshi said.

    Burrell told him about the situation and informed him about the weather crisis.

    "'We're gonna have a flood that will be five to 10 times greater than our last flood event in 2005,'" he recalled Burrell saying to him.

    All remotely from Toronto, Nenshi leapt into action, signing the city's first state of local emergency and organizing Canada's largest mass evacuation during peacetime.

    "I didn't want to be on a plane and out of touch for four hours while I was flying," he said.

    Once Nenshi was back on the ground in Calgary, he says he entered the Calgary Emergency Management Agency's office for the first time since becoming mayor.

    "It had just opened," he said.

    "It looks like every movie you've ever seen about NASA, you know, mission control in Houston, just a big wall of video and a whole bunch of people sitting in front."

    Since he knew that the situation was well in hand there, Nenshi said he decided to see the city.

    So, with a police escort, he went out to survey the downtown area already affected by flooding.

    "At one point we found ourselves on the north bank of the Bow River. I remember it was dark – we had turned the power off as a precautionary measure.

    "I stood there by the Peace Bridge on the bank of the river and I listened to the river."

    Nenshi says he "never heard it so loud and so angry."

    "When my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw how high it was. That was the first time I allowed myself to get a little bit scared."

    A short time later, Nenshi said he was taken to a spot where he could observe the evacuation of a seniors' facility in Chinatown.

    "This could have been a very bad situation," he said. "A lot of these folks didn't speak English very well, they were elderly, it was the middle of the night. They'd been woken up, taken down the stairs (and) they didn't know if or when they'd be back or where they were going."

    In that situation, Nenshi said he saw the dedication of Calgary's first responders during the emergency.

    "I watched those police officers and civil servants who'd gone to work like a normal day, 16 or 22 hours earlier, and they were exhausted.

    "They were treating those people with such dedication, dignity and love that I exhaled and said, 'You know what, we're going to be OK."

    Now, 10 years after the flood, Nenshi says a lot of work has been done to protect Calgary from any future disasters.

    That includes reinforcement of river and creek banks, improving drainage systems and creating permanent flood barriers in many of Calgary's at-risk areas.

    "We're ready on the Elbow River," Nenshi said. "The Glenmore Reservoir has been increased in volume, the Springbank dry dam is under construction and will be functional within the next year or two."

    As for the Bow River, Nenshi says a lot of work has been done to "armour" the banks in the downtown core and Eau Claire.

    Some work has been stalled, such as in Bowness, he said, but the river will still need another large reservoir.

    "I'm told that's still 10 years away and that's just too, too long."

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