A standing room only crowd was on hand Monday night as the City of Humboldt held a public meeting to answer the public's questions regarding the water system.

This follows a 24 hour period where 122 millimeters of rain blasted the city flooding basements across Humboldt.

Mayor Malcolm Eaton admits they have work to do to try and alleviate future damage during wild prairie storms.

"Over the last numbers of years, we've undertaken certain measures to try and improve the situation and we're gonna do that again, we're gonna take some of the things we've learned tonight, some things we know we should be doing and have to do and are planning on doing and we have to put them all in order of when we can do them, figure out how to pay for them and move it forward."

The City is looking five years ahead with upgrades such as new drainage piping near Water Ridge Park, together between sewer and storm water upgrades, they estimate the cost could be three-point-five million dollars.

Eaton spoke about how they will continue to improve the chances of less damage including retention ponds despite their lack of attractiveness near sports fields or green space, "I think we have to remember that the storm water comes in a storm and hopefully then it slowly drains or gets pumped away and so it's a short term problem whereas flooded basements and flooded homes are long term problems."

The city has made upgrades since the last storm of magnitude in 2010 but nothing could have prepared them for this summer's storm, "that's basically what we did as a result of the 2010 flood, we went about and the super pipes were the biggest project but we did a number of other smaller ones that have helped the situation but none of those compared us for five inches of rain like that."

City representatives showed detailed reports of the system plus their future plans to continue to slow damage and  the chance of damage in the future at the meeting."

To hear more from Mayor Eaton in his interview with Bolt Fm's Clark Stork click below.