The City of Regina is urging motorists to avoid flooded roads and underpasses after 50-60 mm of rain fell in the Queen City.

Helene Henning-Hill with the city says fire crews have had a busy day rescuing people from flooded underpasses.

“The Fire Department has had to rescue several vehicles from the Albert Street underpass, and that can be a dangerous situation,” said Henning-Hill. “Crews are out, and they’re doing their best to unblock any flooded streets. Please be patient.”

Henning-Hill says while the city’s storm drain system is working as well as it can, it needs a little bit to catch up, adding things should clear up soon if the rain subsides.

“Even in the next 2 hours, we should see a significant decrease in levels,” said Henning-Hill. “Over the next 24 hours, we expect our system to be completely back to normal.”

When asked what the city is doing to prevent flooding in underpasses in the future, Henning-Hill says it’s not an easy fix.

“There’s a lot of infrastructure there that we would need to figure out how do we deal with the storm system in that area,” said Henning-Hill. “It’s not as easy as putting in a dry detention pond. This is something that our engineering consultants will work with the city on trying to find an innovative way of dealing with the water for the Albert Street underpass.”