Manitoba braces for more flooding

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Manitoba braces for more flooding

Brandon declares local state of emergency.

April 14, 2011

Rising waters continue to threaten highways, bridges and hundreds of homes in Manitoba, as provincial officials warn of a record-breaking flood year.

As flood waters prompted evacuations along the Red River Valley and in the southwestern parts of the province, Steven Ashton, minister responsible for emergency measures, warned that although careful flood preparations would make the flooding look less severe, “I want to stress that this is a very significant flood. This will be a greater flood than the 1950 flood,” he told reporters April 13. “The difference is the mitigation.”

The latest flood forecasts bear this out. Although the water level likely won’t reach the top range of earlier projections, “it still remains somewhat above 2009 levels for all points on the river,” Manitoba Water Stewardship advises in its latest bulletin.

Local state of emergency

Water from an overflowing retention pond threatened over 700 homes in Brandon mid-week, prompting the city to declare a state of local emergency. Officials reported “severe overland flooding” in the south east part of the city on Wednesday, noting “large areas of standing and flowing water.”

Later in the day, crews pumped the pond, downgrading the threat. “The water level in the pond is going down and there is little risk to the homeowners in the area,” advised a city statement. “The city is currently working on a permanent pumping system to control the water flow in this area.”

In the southwestern part of the province, flooding prompted evacuations of residents of a health centre in Gladstone, and a residential care centre in Wawanesa, while almost 200 people from the Peguis First Nation in the Red River Valley were evacuated after their homes were cut off by rising waters.