Westlock residents were once again cleaning up after a severe thunderstorm rolled through town July 27, flooding streets and felling trees.
While the acting town chief administrative officer Mike Butler noted that the municipality had received only a single call about a flooded basement, for one resident the storm was nearly devastating.
“A tree fell over landing just two inches from my roof,” said Lisa Marshall, adding a second tree stopped the falling tree.
“We had just went out to get pizza when the storm came in. I’ll have to thank my Guardian Angel tonight.”
A second house, which fortunately had no one living in it, was not so lucky. A trio of trees uprooted, smashing into the home’s room and knocking over an antenna.
Other residents faced cleanup work done after the wind knocked trees down on to their property. Sheenaugh Cortazar was out late that evening removing a fallen tree from her front yard.
“One tree was touching out roof, then I heard the crack and the tree in our front lawn came down,” she said. “Luckily some good samaritans stopped and helped us clean up.”
Butler said that for the violent nature of the storm, the town was mainly untouched for major damage.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” he said. “We had some basements flooded and trees down. As far as the town’s property, we didn’t get much damage either.”
The rainstorm came on the heels of an earlier heavy rain July 24. Butler noted that neither was nearly as devastating as the Aug. 22, 2016 downpour that flooded scores of homes and businesses.
He added that the town was still awaiting a response from the province about Disaster Recovery Program funding from that flood.
“Unfortunately a lot of the people involved with that are involved with continuing flooding, because their issue hasn’t been dealt with.”
He said the town did not expect to have to file any damage claims for civic property, but advised residents whose property was damaged by falling debris to take photos and contact their insurance companies.
