Calgary Stampede

The motto of the Calgary Stampede after the flood is Come Hell or High Water, the Stampede will open as usual this Friday. As soon as the river receded the Stampede started draining the grounds. The in field for the rodeo has been restored.  The main grounds on the midway has been cleaned. All the major buildings have been cleaned up. From Monday June 24 to July 2, the downtown core has been cleared of debris, the streets washed and buildings have been cleared of flood  damaged walls.  The majority of the downtown hotels are open for business at reasonable rates to attract tourists who have been frightened by the flood damage. To an outsider visiting Calgary the flood damage is not that obvious.  The residential areas in the downtown core such as Mission, Sunnyside, Roxboro and Riverside where houses are located on the banks of the river recieved extensive damage. Thousands of volunteers showed up in these neighbourhoods and literally helped the residents clear their houses of  damaged goods, ripping out dry wall to the studs and cleaning the mud from the houses. The garbage trucks and waste disposal worked from 7:00am to 9:00 pm. overnight.  The result is that these neighbourhoods have been cleared of the debris. In all this chaos, there was little looting of the houses.  There was only one death of an elderly woman due to the flooding. For the 75,000 residents displaced from their homes, life is returning to normal in just over a week.  I have included some pictures of China town and the Stampede grounds that were literally underwater but now look surpisingly normal.  The Saddledome was was flooded up to row 14 .   The Saddledome will be open in the following week.  The bronze statue of the cowboy herding a calf in front of the BMO Centre  is about quater mile from the Bow River was flooded gives one an idea of how fast the flood waters came up in three short hours.