High Water Readiness
If you have ever been here or looked for us on a map, you will know Riverbend Campground is located on the Sheep River. For most of the year the Sheep is a quiet river winding through the foothills before emptying into the Highwood River about eight kilometers to the east of us and eventually into the Bow. During spring melt in the mountains, stream flow can be much heavier and some years the river breaches its banks and causes flooding. There have been some dramatic events in the past and we have seen the course of the river actually change.
As you can imagine, through the 30-plus years our families have been here we have seen and experienced all that Mother Nature is capable of, both the good and the not so good. Each year we are repairing and preparing in varying measures. Much work has been done in the last two years to protect our property and our community. The river bank has seen much of this work. We don’t expect any problems but are ever vigilant. Much monitoring takes place upstream and when authorities believe there is a risk, we are notified. We in turn notify campers to the best of our ability. In the past, members of our campground community came together and helped one another. RV’s located in areas that might be affected were moved to higher ground.
To facilitate notification in emergency events, the municipalities in our area have banded together and have a coordinated warning system in place called Safe Communities Alert Network (SCAN). If you are a month-to-month or seasonal camper we encourage you to sign up to receive alerts. You simply go to the MD of Foothills website here: http://www.mdfoothills.com/emergency-management/emergency-alerts.html Here you will see information on the SCAN system with a link to create an account. When you go through the process you will be given options with respect to the types of notifications you are interested in receiving. Notifications can be sent to you via text message. The platform used was created by a developer called Everbridge, who has also developed an app for your smart phone. The app allows you to go into the site for updates.
Riverbend is also setting up a system which will allow us to send out notifications via bulk text message. We are in the process of inputting the cell phone numbers of our campers but you can opt-in to this by simply texting: “EZTHH10253” to 393939.