Nature Does Not Play Favourites

Amid the pollution problems here, I have learned that a city where I formerly lived in Canada is facing serious flooding.  It is near the Rocky Mountains. Those who have a great deal of money tend to live beside the river in that city. Unfortunately, that location comes with a price tag.  The price tag comes in the form of mandatory evacuation due to the flooding of the rivers from the winter runoff and heavy rains.

You have to keep in mind that people in that part of the world are unfamiliar with states of emergencies. Over here, what they are experiencing are events that happen on a regular basis when a heavy rain causes flooding on major highways because of poorly engineered roads.  There, they expect things to work, so when nature has its way, they fall apart. And, as I said, the wealthy are the ones who get hit the hardest because they chose locations for their homes to be the ultimate in views and esthetics.

So, for those who are curious, the current evacuation area of Calgary is in this map.

True, a small pocket of housing is in a bad place right now, but that pocket is experiencing something they are not prepared to deal with.  And other parts of the province are in much worse shape than this.  A lesson in materialism I guess.  What is important when faced with disaster?

This photograph gives an idea of the flooding. A small city between Banff and Calgary - you can see the high end homes are cut off from everything with the roads flooded.  The picture on the right is the road into Banff. The flooding river has eroded the road bed and as you can see - the road has split and collapsed.

Now have read that downtown Calgary is being evacuated. That could be a real nightmare. From what I recall, back in 2004, there were over 200,000 people who worked in the downtown area. So, adding more numbers due to the year that I recall and now, it will be a gongshow trying to get everyone out of there today.