Focus on Flooding: The Badger
Disaster of 2003
The February, 2003 flood that destroyed homes and businesses,
contaminated water and sewer systems and caused the
evacuation of Badger, on the Exploits River, may be
the worst disaster in the town's history. Ice jams,
formed during a period of high winds, blowing snow and
extremely cold temperatures, caused the Badger, Exploits
and Red Indian Rivers to spill their banks, washing
away riverside structures and encasing the entire town
in ice.
Bishop's Falls Flood of
'83: The flood of 2003 is not the first time
that central Newfoundland communities have felt the
sudden and brutal force of the Exploits River. In
1983, a disastrous combination of unusually warm temperatures
and heavy rainfall contributed to a rapid melt of
snow cover and resulted in extensive damage in the
downstream community of Bishop's Falls. On January
14, after a deluge of 200 millimetres of rainfall,
the river current surged from 6,000 cubic feet per
metre to 90,000 cubic feet per metre, destroying several
homes, the local hydroelectric plant, Lion's Community
Centre and a recently-constructed riverside park.
Flood damages amounted to over $33 million. Following
the disaster, flood gates were installed as part of
the reconstruction of the power plant.
Flood-Prone Badger: The
town of Badger experienced flooding in 1978, 1982
and 1985. The community is located directly on the
Exploits River floodplain and has been identified
by the provincial government as a "flood risk
zone," prone to flooding by ice jams and high
spring run-off. Badger's Flood Risk Zone Map shows
that a number of residential streets are within the
100-year flood risk zone, or "floodway fringe,"
and that some streets are within the 20-year flood
risk zone, or "designated floodway."
Although residents of Badger had little warning of
the flood of February 2003, the town's flood risk
is monitored by a provincial flood forecasting centre
operated by the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
At the centre, precipitation, temperature and flow
data are remotely collected from rivers and downloaded
to computers in St. John's in near-to-real-time via
satellite. This information can be analyzed and relayed
to the provincial Emergency Measures Division for
appropriate action.
Ice Jam Information
• Ice jams can occur when ice floes encounter
a stationary downstream ice cover that blocks the
floes, or when the ice cover breaks up earlier than
normal.
• Ice jam flooding occurs when river flows pond
behind ice jams and flood adjacent low-lying areas.
• Ice jams form most frequently at islands, riverbends,
confluences, bridges and other obstructions.
•"Freeze-up jams" occur in early to
mid-winter; "break-up jams" occur in late
winter to early spring.
• Ice jam flooding can be prevented by the construction
of booms to trap and remove accumulating ice, by breaking
or blasting jams as they form, and by drilling holes
in stable ice cover to weaken or eliminate it.
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