Epcor mulls accelerated storm-water resilience plan after Edmonton’s record rainfalls

The summer of 2026 will be remembered for record-breaking rainfalls and multiple storms a week throughout June and July.

Close to a month since the onslaught of extreme weather calmed down, city-owned utility provider EPCOR provided a verbal update to the City of Edmonton’s utility committee about how it managed its response to the series of floods and other issues that emerged during the storms.

“I think the biggest takeaway from today was around communication and transparency,” said Keren Tang, city councillor for Ward Karhiio.

“It’s better to over-communicate in situations where you’re getting things like unprecedented weather, than to under-communicate and leave people feeling like they have to try and seek out that information,” Knack said.

On Monday, EPCOR said the July storms were unique and extreme in nature, straining infrastructure with minimal recovery time between storms.

According to Environment Canada, the city received more than 500 mm of rain over June and July — the highest volume in decades.

Multiple storms a week left the groundwater table so saturated that it stopped absorbing, sending more runoff than normal into the storm-water system — which then struggled to keep up.

EPCOR said a lengthy stretch of dry weather was needed to allow the system to recover.

The weather highlighted weaknesses in Edmonton’s aging storm-water network.

Last month, Knack admitted flood resiliency should have been started decades earlier as what used to be one-in-100-year floods are now more like one-in-10-year floods.

“A lot of our infrastructure held up the way we had envisioned it to,” Knack said on Monday. “Obviously there’s still more work to do.

Scores of homes in the city sustained water damage from sewage backups or overland flooding.

Major roads like Whitemud Drive, Yellowhead Trail, Groat Road and the interchange of Connors Road and the Low Level Bridge also turned into rivers and lakes.

“We’re going to look closely at our infrastructure and those cases, and see how over time we can make improvements to help mitigate those risks,” said Craig Bonneville, vice-president of planning, projects and engineering at EPCOR.