A southeast Saskatchewan community is rallying around a local dance studio after a weekend storm caused serious flooding – happening just on the eve of provincial dance competitions. A flood is the last thing Katie Bjarnason expected when she took over the dance studio in Churchbridge a month ago. “Heavy rain that came straight down for a solid 40 minutes, and a lot of weather stations and gauges around town measured two inches in that time span,” she told CTV News on Monday. The town of around 850 people, located around 50 kilometres southeast of Yorkton, was slammed with an estimated 55 millimetres of rainfall during the storm Sunday night. “I didn’t actually know it was flooded until one of my dance students had messaged me,” Bjarnason explained. “I opened back door, walked in, and I was a little bit over my ankle-deep in water throughout the entire part of the front building.” After the immediate shock subsided, all hands were on deck to clean up the damage left behind. “My heart sank, and it broke a little bit. But I put a call out to my husband and family and friends, and I had a big team come in and help me get it all cleaned up last night,” Bjarnason said. “We worked for two and a half hours to get all the water out.” The flooding came at possibly the worst time, as Bjarnason has several students set to travel to North Battleford for provincial competitions this week. The groups final practice prior to the competition was scheduled for Monday at the studio. Thankfully, the group was able to relocate their practice to the community hall on short notice. “I couldn’t ask, really, for better people around me. The town is allowing me to use the hall for my students to practice tonight, so thank you to them,” she said. Many in the community were hard at work cleaning up on Monday. The local Co-op was reportedly sold out of pumps just half an hour after opening, according to Bjarnason. For now, work will continue on the studio’s cleanup and preparing the dancers for their big performances later this week. “It’s been a good community, and still people are reaching out and seeing if I need help, do I need any dehumidifiers, do we need shop vacs,” Bjarnason noted. “As of now, I think we got it under control.”
