Tedgrrrr

Yes you can!!! Lloyd's of London will insure anything as long as you're willing to pay. I had to go through them for special insurance a little while back for something that no conventional insurance company would cover... You get this insurance through the "surplus lines" market, described here:

http://www.lloyds.com/lloyds/offices...-access-lloyds

This is for the US, which is where I obtained my special insurance, but I'd be shocked if there isn't something identical in Canada.

PointWeasel

Do you have intel that the Americans are sending a team to Canmore?

In all seriousness, this damage to the Trans-Canada Hwy is apparently substantial in a few places between Canmore and Banff, not just the section at Cougar Creek. While they restored a limited bus service between the 2 towns, for those that regularly go back and forth, nothing else has been moving in that corridor (apparently Sobeys and Safeway are getting deliveries via a service road into Canmore).

I hoping that Alberta Transportation can get crews there as soon as safe to do so to restore the the vital link but it could be a few more days before anything moves.

For those fellow Canadians who are minimizing the damage, this is the official link to Alberta Transportation and the hwy closures:

http://511.alberta.ca/ab/en.html

What's curious is that CP Rail has nothing on their home page about washouts, etc and since tracks usually come very close to the rivers, I would also think they are severly affected.

Crampedin13A

As someone who has lived in Calgary and loved it these images are painful. Judging by the state of the Trans-Canada I think a lot of Canadians are going to be surprised by the economic impact of this on the whole country.

Jagboi

Not only the highway, but the railroad is cut off too. Normally they would detour trains south through the Crowsnest Pass and up to Golden, but the rail line is washed out in the Crowsnest as well. 2 major transportation links across Canada are broken.

ridefar

I just assumed the Canadian Army has something similar?

The road between Banff and Canmore is actually not bad except for one section around Carrot Creek if my sources are correct. However, the whole eastbound side is washed out there. (For those that are wondering, this is about 2 km east of the first Banff exit, first if you are traveling westbound.) So due to emergency vehicles and other disaster traffic, two way traffic isnt really possible.

I understand that Hwy 1 is a major problem, but there are two other roads: you can use the road through 3 Sisters, which links up with Hwy 1 east of where it is completely washed away. There are still some mud slides on the road further east at Deadman's Flats, and another at Lac Des Arcs, but I dont believe the highway itself is substantially destroyed like it is at the Canmore Overpass. The other road is 1A, which is not easily accessed at this point, given that Elk Run Blvd and Railway Dr. are largely destroyed, but... Railway drive should be easier to fix, and 1A has a much smaller washed out section--I am presuming this could be fixed much faster than Hwy 1.

So anyways, it is a huge problem. And while emergency traffic and locals and residents may have limited access in and out of Canmore in another couple of days, hopefully, unrestricted access for traffic volumes like was there previously will take weeks.

And to Crampedin13A's point, yes I think it will have a huge impact on the local economy and national economy. I believe that the east/west rail links are gone, except for the one further north by Jasper. Highway 1 carries a huge amount of commercial traffic. And Banff sees 6 million visitors a year. That number will effectively be reduced to zero until the highway is fixed. This is not some secondary road people, this is the primary East-West link across the mountains. The southern route (through Crowsnest Pass) is also gone at the moment. That just leaves the Yellowhead, which would add 6 or 8 hours to a driving trip from Calgary to Vancouver.

global happy traveller

If I recall, those flood insurance is underwritten by FEMA or US Corp of Engineers.... I had a book about this..... I recall asking Canadian insurance companies and brokers about this (ie. the big names) cause with the intensity of the storms i really want to cover my backside, none offered other than sewer backup

Crampedin13A

Hopefully they don't let any of the 401 contractors from the GTA do any of the rebuilding. It would be decades before those bridges are replaced.

Tedgrrrr

In my case, I got turned down by five insurance companies (Arch, Erie, Zurich, etc)., and then took my rejections to a Lloyd's broker and got insurance for a hefty price. My insurance has nothing to do with flooding, but it's underwritten proportionally by all of the "names" at Lloyd's. I'd be shocked if Lloyd's refused to insure against flooding... Note though that by law (in the U.S. at least), Lloyd's can only offer insurance if you've already been turned down by three or more conventional insurance companies.

Something analogous is the situation with junk bonds in the 80s, where no banks would lend money to certain Latin countries, so Michael Milken and others agreed to lend those countries money at insanely high interest rates. Here too, there must be a price at which Lloyd's would insure - maybe it's $10,000/year and it would make more sense to keep that money in a bank account or GIC, maybe it would even be $20,000, who knows, but there is some price at which I'm sure they'd agree to insure.

Stranger

No matter how you look at this, some people are more rational than others. My wife, who experienced a rather scary flood in a previous life, would never let us buy a house in a flood area.

It may be human nature to follow emotions rather than reason, but at the end of the day, that's not an excuse for a bad decision.

The odds of a meteor strike are tiny. So the rational choice is to take the risk. When we lived in an earthquake prone area, there was no way that we would not be quite aware of it. Do the best we could to plan. There is no reason for the case of a flood to be any different. Odds are similar Floods are somewhat not as bad in that you get enough warning to save your skin, if you are not stupid and you follow the orders.

This said, when you look at Richmond BC, I have a very hard time undersanding that people risk to live there. I definitely would not. Which brings me to the next point: real estate market.

The real underlying issue here is that no one wanted to hear about flood risks, just like in Richmond BC, where in contrast with California, there seems to be a conspiracy into hiding the risks. Neither developers, or landowners, or at the end of the day, property owners want to hear about the risks. Some minimize or downplay the risks for their own benefits, some others buy into the BS because they want to indulge in wishful thinking.

At one point the city of Calgary wanted to put in place a flood management plan. But the real estate lobby, concerned that property values would decline, were dead against and the plan was shelved. So should we cry?

Should public money go to support the owners of those multimillion dollars houses that back onto the Elbow river, and who did not purchase insurance? Is that fair to the bulk of the taxpayers?

PointWeasel

Concerning the Calgary real estate/property developer lobby, you are correct, however, this is not unique to Southern Alberta either. While IMHO it is stupid to build a multi-million dollar home close to the river and on a floodplain, I feel that as Canadians, we would always help each other to bounceback from natural disaster like this. Am I wong?

ridefar

Should public money go to support the owners of the $300,000 homes in Bowness? Or the $200,000 home? I thought one of the great things about Canada is we help those in need. Period. Who cares how much the home is worth? So just because somebody owns an expensive home they should get nothing? Really? They contribute don't they? Pay income tax, property tax, GST?

Seems to me that even if they get help they still stand to lose hundreds of thousands--no disaster assistance program ever covers 100% of a homeowner's losses. And only reconstruction costs are covered. Other things, like art and electronics, would be a total loss. I think somebody that loses three or four or five hundred thousand is taking a pretty big loss. No need to say "your rich, you are on your own, screw you." If we wanted that, we could move to America, where nobody really cares about anybody but themselves most of the time.

global happy traveller

I agree some people may be in denial and there may be self interest groups that influenced a well intentioned plan.

However at the end of the day - risk is comprised of past experiences (if any), measurements and a whole bunch of statistical calculation...... Are those risk calculations accurate? Can they predict the future? Are past risk calculations still applicable as weather events become more extreme.......... No one knows...... Just like the meteor strike, risk is low but can you tell me specifically where it will strike next so I can avoid? That is why I exercise sympathy, because even the best laid out plans and rational decisions made in the past may go wrong...

And if you can find an insurance company in Canada that covers overland flooding, let me know! I am sure a number of us would be interested if offered!

Crampedin13A

Coming from Toronto when I lived in Calgary I was amazed at how many properties were situated in obvious floodplains. Hurricane Hazel was a disaster in 1954 for Toronto but they learned from it and the conservation lands that were created are what makes a city of Toronto's size very liveable. The fact that there was a worse flood in 1932 makes the Calgary municipal planners from previous decades look very incompetent. I'm not talking so much about downtown but Montgomery,Sunnyside and Bowness are quite obvious

Stranger

Oh, I absolutely agree.

OTOH, would I be a victim, I would not want people to feel sorry for me.

Stranger

I guess if the multimillion dollars houses backing on the Elbow get the same amount of support as the Bowness ones, I can live with that.