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Athabasca River to break at any time

(File Photo: Riverbreak camera shows images from April 23, 2014. REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF WOOD BUFFALO).

The ice on the Athabasca River could break at any time, according to the city.

Alan McIntosh with Emergency Management explains.

“There’s a lot of water movement going on, there’s been a lot of ice deterioration through the full length both up and downstream on the Athabasca River, there’s some deterioration on the Clearwter,” he continues, “the river forecasters have been flying every day and monitoring this and we’ve seen some major changes.”

He says the city’s engineering department has started visual observation.

“It means that we have people out looking at areas up river from the water treatment plant and a couple of other places where we measure water levels and we can get an indication if there’s going to be any surges of water coming down the river or not,” he says.

McIntosh says there’s no official way to tell when the ice will pass through town or if there’ll be flooding

“We can only make assessments on the fact that we’ve got a fairly regular to low water level,” he adds, “the ice has had a very good chance to deteriorate naturally so we’re not expecting anything.”

He also says it’s watching an ice jam up north.

CLICK HERE to watch the RMWB River Break Camera and CLICK HERE for more information.