A colder than normal spring this year may have saved southern Manitoba from the sort of serious flooding that beset the province in 2018 and 2019.
Thanks to grey skies, chilly temperatures and even occasional flurries, the annual melt of the winter’s ice and snow has been slow and controlled – flattening the curve, so to speak.
But it’s not yet time to sound the All Clear.
At the beginning of the third complete week of April, a flood warning and high-water advisory were in effect as the Red River pushed its peak and communities in the flood zone in southern Manitoba prepared for the cold, muddy river to overflow its banks.
The high-water levels are flowing northward into Manitoba from lower down the Red in North Dakota.
According to the US National Weather Service, there is already major flooding along the Red River at Drayton, N.D.
The American weather service has also issued a flood warning for areas along the Red near the North Dakota cities of Fargo and Grand Forks, up to Pembina on the Canada-U.S. border.
The Red River at Pembina was expected to crest at 50.5 feet some time on April 20.
The flood was expected to remain steady at crest levels until the end of the week of April 20, when the river was expected to start dropping slowly.
In most years southern Manitoba endures at least some spring flooding from the Red River and the Assiniboine River. Some years it is more than just “some.”
Manitobans have been enduring major floods since the early 1800s. In the past 70 years, floods in 1950, 1997, 2009 and 2011 have caused serious damage.
For example, in the spring of 1950, 100,000 Winnipeggers (one- third of the city’s population at the time) were evacuated from their homes.
Approximately 10,000 homes were destroyed and 5,000 buildings were damaged.
Total damage was estimated at $1 billion in current dollars.
The “flood of the century” in April-May 1997 was the most severe in the Red River valley since 1852.
It took more than 7,000 military personnel over one month to keep flood damage down and to relocate 25,000 evacuees.
At the same time, Manitoba’s flood-fighting efforts have improved greatly over the years and have significantly reduced both the number of evacuations and the amount of damage caused by the floods.
One of the most important of these flood protection measures is the Red River Floodway, which protects Winnipeg.
The original floodway was built between 1962 and 1968 and cost $63 million.
At the time, excavation of the floodway channel was the second largest earth moving project in the world (after the Panama Canal) and larger than the Suez Canal dig.
Since it was built the floodway has prevented tens of billions of dollars in flood damage in Winnipeg.
The system was expanded after the 1997 flood and now protects the city from a one-in-700-year flood.
In 2020, preparations for a possible flood were complicated by the almost simultaneous arrival of more bad news in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To make life interesting for sandbaggers and others who are needed to keep the waters of the Red at bay, the provincial government’s Manitoba Infrastructure has added some precautions to normal sandbag and water-filled barrier procedures.
In addition to the ubiquitous six-feet social distancing rule, they include
- availability of adequate hand washing and washroom facilities;
- regular disinfecting of surfaces; and
- use of appropriate personal protective equipment.
There are also COVID-19-related government restrictions on filling sandbags, constructing dikes both small and large and installing water-filled barriers.
The City of Winnipeg is also, in its own words, “balancing the health, safety and well-being of our employees.”
Said city spokesman Adam Campbell, “Our emergency operations centre is actively engaged in our response to COVID-19… the same is true of flood preparations, including safe-work procedures for the production of sandbags and the building of sandbag dikes.
“Crews are following safe work procedures and are following the province’s social distancing protocols.”
Downriver, in the town of Morris, MB, Mayor Scott Crick says logistical constraints caused by COVID-19 haven’t affected his community.
“The majority of work done for the dike and [building ramp access] into the town is done with heavy equipment and does not resemble other types of close-contact work that people associate with flood-fighting, such as sandbagging or manning pumps,” Crick said.
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