Recent record rainfall has delayed several city construction projects, committee hears

Water sits near Yellowhead Trail and 121 Street in Edmonton after an early morning storm on July 15, 2026. (Sean McClune / CTV News Edmonton)

While record heavy rainfall in June and July put a damper on the progress of some city construction projects, city council’s infrastructure committee heard on Wednesday that adjustments to address flooding and other issues allow crews to catch up and keep them on track.

Administration, in an update to the committee, outlined the effects on several projects around the city and how the heavy rains affected them – from “vertical” ones “well above grade,” including bridges, that experienced little to no setbacks to “horizontal” ones such as roadways that had to tackle water issues before continuing the work at hand.

Staff told the committee, made up of five councillors and Mayor Andrew Knack, that city crews successfully managed “more than 1,400 short-term operational issues related to the record 264 millimetres of rain that fell in June and 265 millimetres in July.”

Flash flooding that put underpasses under water and slope erosion that led to the closure of roads and sidewalks took city workers away from some projects to deal with the emergencies.

Knack said the city is looking at ways to try to make up for lost time on projects affected by the storms.

“The more we can do that, the better,” he told reporters at City Hall on Tuesday. “I’ve been a strong proponent of this now for the last couple of years, of saying, ‘Let’s go in, get the work done, and get out as soon as possible,’ because the construction is tiresome, and it has a lot of impact on people. If you can speed things up like that, why not just go full speed all the time?”

The committee heard the city is working to recover costs related to the storm through the province’s Hazard Assistance and Resilience Program, which could allow the city to recover 90 per cent of its eligible uninsurable costs, which are about $42 million.

Staff said Epcor’s recent report noted that most core infrastructure has since reopened and that city crews are continuing to work on features such as slope failures, creek erosion and bridge abutments. The slope failure work includes two on either end of the High Level Bridge, ones on embankments on Whitemud Drive at 122 Street and on 98 Avenue over Connors Road; and landslides below Saskatchewan Drive at 99 Street and Queen Elizabeth Park Road.

Other projects affected include:

• land development at Blatchford, the Exhibition Lands and Goodridge Corners, where land sales have been pushed back by delays due to rain;
• the Yellowhead Trail Freeway expansion, which has seen a multi-week delay but has had a worksite established for “rapid recovery after flooding events”;
• the Telus World of Science, which was severely flooded and is closed until next year;
• its neighbour, the Peter Hemingway Aquatic Centre, which had storm-related flooding and is closed for repairs and electrical resilience upgrades. The pool opened less than a year ago after an extensive renovation, with that work under warranty; and
• the Capital Line South LRT, where the adverse weather will push some work into the winter or next year.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson