Alberta Premier Alison Redford meets volunteers filling sandbags in Fort McMurray. (Photo Andrew Bates/Today staff)
Seventy residents are defying mandatory evacuation orders in the Grayling Terrace area despite worries a deluge of rain this weekend could create a landslide that would block off the Hangingstone River, diverting water into the residential area.
Officials Thursday ordered a mandatory evacuation for the neighbourhood over concerns of instability in the hillside above the Hangingstone in that area.
“If a significant amount of material was to fall down to that area, the danger is that it would either completely block the river (off) or it would impede the flow of the river enough that that river has nowhere to go,” said Darby Allen, fire chief and operations commander.
This was a wire piece from the Fort McMurray Today that ran in the Toronto Sun and Calgary Sun, among other QMI papers. Check out this link for a list of pieces I wrote for the Today, including flood coverage.