Cougar Creek flood mitigation on target for May deadline

With the spring melt just around the corner, crews are busy installing flood mitigation measures on Cougar Creek in Canmore.

• Canmore's Cougar Creek flood aftermath visible 100 days later

After last year's devastating flood, people in the mountain town west of Calgary are watching the preparations closely.

Debra Peters hopes her town will be ready for spring run-off asshe lives next to Cougar Creek.

"You have the memories of this rushing torrent coming down sounding like Niagara Falls coupled with rolling lumber and rocks," she said."It was just like rumbling thunder....So yeah, there's absolute apprehension."

Neighbour Bev Carrick says she feels it too.

"Definitely, we are somewhat nervous, but there are things you can't control and I see them working really, really hard on it," she said.

Crews have been digging out the creek bed and laying down concrete mats.

"So, these mats are designed to prevent the water from picking up new debris," said Mayor John Borrowman.

"Just imagine an ice cube trayfilling it up with concrete. Of course, it's a big ice cube tray.It's 12square metres [with]3800 mats that's a lot of concrete."

Crews are also installing metal netting upstream to catch debris.

Borrowman says the flood mitigation work is on target. He expects it to be completed by the May 1 deadline.