Flooded downtown Calgary has half of power restored

Just over half of Calgary's downtown has had power restored, according to city officials.

Four out of seven power zones in the downtown core had power as of 7 a.m. MT, Bruce Burrell, Calgary Emergency Management Agency director, said Tuesday morning.

"I want to have people going back in and having a sense of normalcy as quickly as possible," said Burrell.

"These people [city workers] are working all the time, not only looking at we need to do today, but what does this need to look like three or four days from now.

"And, folks, this is a big disaster, we're going to be working on this for a few more weeks."

C-Train service across the city and parts of the downtown core has also been expanded, including on some lines which are now fully operational. For the most up to date information on service, visit Calgarytransit.com.

A number of bridges have also been reopened, either partially or in full.

Late Monday night, city officials asked all downtown employees to stay home Tuesday, even though parts of the downtown core had been reopened.

Officials said streets were a traffic mess following a partial reopening of the core over the weekend, and they asked that the core be open to residents only.

"We have a lot of work to do downtown, and it's best to stay out of the way of people doing that work," Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said.

He urged Calgarians to continue helping out neighbours as the city recovers from last week's floods.

"There is nothing preventing you from knocking on your neighbour's door," Nenshi said.

Nenshi also cautioned against people using generators indoors and said that restoring power to the Beltline community is now one of Enmax's top priorities.

With water beginning to recede, the city is taking steps to begin restoring some normalcy for Calgary residents.

Power was restored to much of the downtown core Monday and transit officials are hopeful some C-Train service could be restored by Wednesday.

Enmax made the decision to restore power following inspections by city officials to make sure the buildings were safe. A small number of businesses in the area may still be without power because of specific electrical or structural issues that need to be resolved, city officials say.

The area where power has been restored and is open to the public is west of Second Street S.W. to the Bow River, plus land north of Riverfront Avenue between Second Street S.W. and Centre Street.

Over the past few days, TransAlta has managed to reduce the flow rate in the Bow River significantly.

A number of areas are still off-limits to the public, including Prince's Island, although the Peace Bridge has reopened to the public.

Officials are cautioning people that while disinfectants in the city's water might make it taste funny, water is still safe to drink.

There is no boil water advisory in Calgary.

Some trains could resume Wednesday

As well, Calgary Transit is hoping to have trains from the northeast, west and northwest lines running downtown by Wednesday, so long as the electrical system works and is deemed safe.

The south line is still facing significant issues and will not be opened at this time.

"We are actively pumping, as we have been since Saturday so there's actually some in-built pumps within both of the tunnels that we've been using and we've brought in additional pumps," said Doug Morgan with Calgary Transit. "We're at the point where we're ready to get into those to do some power-washing and see what the state of the infrastructure is."

The C-Train tracks by Erlton Station have buckled due to flood waters and are not operating.

The tracks will be rebuilt by crews who had been working on the LRT extension for the new Tuscany Station in the northwest.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford has warned the cleanup effort could take up to 10 years.

Map of downtown areas with power

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