Altona town administrators took some time this week to assess last weekend's heavy rain event that swamped several streets in the community.

Parts of the community's storm drain system was unable to keep up with the torrential downpour that fell primarily on Friday morning flooding several streets and part of the downtown area. Town crews were forced to temporarily close 2nd Street NE, 6th Avenue NE, 1st Street SE and 2nd Avenue NW.

Mayor Al Friesen said the town's public works department worked hard to move water off streets as quickly as possible but had to try and overcome several challenges.

"A lot of things occurred that caused this situation to be worse than it should have been. We had a number of failures including debris getting into one of our lift stations and that caused the pump to slow down. We had to reach out to Altona Farm Service and Derksen Trucking who lent us pumps which allowed us to tackle some of the water that was starting to build up. We also had a problem with one of our reservoirs, so our staff was being pulled in a variety of directions ... but I really think our crews worked admirably."

Town council has already allocated $200,000 to upgrade the lift station in the northeast part of town, which should help move excess water from streets during future rain events.

The bigger question, according to Friesen, is the downtown area along 2nd Street NE.

"As was reported earlier, we have put in an application for a partnership through the Building Canada fund, because there is a significant cost attached to it, but that project would deal with the downtown flood issue."

The infrastructure proposal to fix Altona's downtown flood problem would cost a total of $2.2 million, which is why town council is hoping to partner with the provincial and federal governments to help cost-share that price tag.

"It's just another reminder that money we spend on infrastructure beneath the ground is just as important as the stuff that looks good on the top of the ground."