Southern Manitoba communities brace for possibility of more flooding while others assess damage
Powerview-Pine Falls erects barricades around water-treatment plant
Some communities in southern Manitoba are still bracing for more flood impacts while others begin to assess the damage after another storm moved across the region this week.
The town of Powerview-Pine Falls has put up barricades to protect its water treatment plant, deputy mayor Lorie Finkbeiner told CBC News.
The rural municipality of St. Clements, which held an emergency meeting on Tuesday after Environment Canada issued rainfall and wind warnings across much of southern Manitoba, had no report of damage around the southern basin of Lake Winnipeg, said emergency co-ordinator Tyler Freeman.
The municipality got lucky — the waves on Lake Winnipeg were not as high as the province feared they could get, he said.
The only trouble spot was near Patricia Beach, where the municipality set up a pump and properties sustained no damage.
In the rural municipality of Gimli, a section of Highway 222 was closed after a swollen creek damaged the road.
"Now that the rain has stopped, I think our drainage systems will be able to handle it," Mayor Lynn Greenberg said.
Despite the washout on Highway 222, road access in the area has not been significantly affected, Greenberg said.
The municipality's public works department has not yet done an assessment of the damage.
"The worst part right now is the farmers can't get on the field and they're behind already, over a month, in seeding," Greenberg said.
Farmers need about four or five days of dry weather, he said.
A spokesperson for the rural municipality of Lakeside said the evacuation order for residents around Dauphin Lake is over, and all residents at Ochre Beach and Crescent Cove are back.
High north winds drove up water levels on the south side of Dauphin Lake, which is east of Dauphin and northeast of Riding Mountain.
The municipality is still determining how many properties were damaged by the lake surge.
Winnipeg River now a 'huge, huge basin'
In the southeast, the Whiteshell region remains under an evacuation order. CBC News has requested an update from the provincial government on water levels in the Winnipeg River system, which have continued to rise but at a slower pace in recent days.
"It's created a huge, huge basin," said D.J. Seales, standing by the bloated Winnipeg River at the Seven Sisters Generating Plant on Wednesday.
Seales is owner of Barrier Bay Resort and president of the North Whiteshell Business Association. All resorts in his neck of the woods are closed due to waters that have risen slightly in recent days.
His lodge has managed to remain relatively unscathed, though the same can't be said for his lot. Some property owners on the Winnipeg River have been even worse off.
"Any docks pretty much are gone for anybody," said Seales. "Then there's the damage to the riverfront, that's where ours is happening, we're losing all kinds of property just from the water washing it out."
Seales says so far most other lodge owners' sandbag and dike perimeters are holding up.
"We're monitoring it daily and checking to see if it is going to hold and it looks like it is," he said. "Yesterday it was two-foot waves and it held fine, so [we're] hopeful and confident that it will [hold up]."
Seales suggested any guests with reservations in the area coming up should be patient if they face cancellations. Guests who do manage to get into a lodge if they open in the next while should also be prepared for a different experience.
"The big piece is going to be afterwards," he said. "It may not look the same as it has in other years because repairing, cleaning up, et cetera."
Lake of the Woods could rise
Across the border in Ontario, the City of Kenora issued an alert that water levels on Lake of the Woods could rise another 15 to 21 centimetres in the next week.
"We are concerned about rising water levels on many of the urban roads, of which some have seen significant water level increases over the past 24 hours," the city said in a news release.
The city is advising residents on Sedesky Road, Wildwood Drive, West Bay Road and Second West Bay Road to monitor their homes for possible flooding.
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With files from Bartley Kives