2 dead but the good news is that the Red River is receding.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/weather/03/2 ... .flooding/
Flooding in North Dakota
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SaskatchewanScreamer
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SaskatchewanScreamer
Hundreds answer call to join Manitoba flood fight
Last Updated: Saturday, April 4, 2009 | 2:21 PM CT
CBC News
Volunteers have responded to an urgent call for help filling and stacking sandbags in communities along the Red River north of Winnipeg.
As many as 700 people registered Saturday at the South St. Andrews Fire Hall, the hub of emergency preparations in the region, on the final day of a two-day push to complete dikes and create a stockpile of sandbags.
Volunteers were being asked to call (204)-481-0739 before heading down to the fire hall. The sandbagging campaign was taking place mainly in the Red River communities of St. Andrews, West St. Paul and Selkirk.
Paul Guyder, the emergency co-ordinator for region, said once the sandbagging is finished, volunteers will focus their attention on clearing culverts to prepare for flooding.
The river is expected the crest Thursday at levels below what they were during Manitoba's second worst flood in 1979 — but Guyder said a major ice jam could change everything.
"The fear right now is we have to get that ice out of the river. The Amphibex [Excavators] are still working and breaking the ice apart, and everyday we buy with the warm weather and the current, it is thinning the ice down a bit, so when it does start to move, the better chance it'll move right out into the lake," he said.
Sandbagging efforts in Winnipeg — on Kingston Row, Christie Road and Scotia Street — were also progressing at a steady rate, thanks to a wealth of volunteers.
Operators on the city's 311 line say there were enough volunteers Saturday, but help would be appreciated Sunday.
Volunteers are needed in the city because 195 homes are at risk of being flooded due to ice jams.
Gates may open early
Manitoba officials will decide by midweek whether to take the unprecedented step of opening the Winnipeg floodway gates early, before ice on the Red River has melted.
Opening the gates before the crest could spare some Winnipeg neighbourhoods serious flooding as water levels are expected rise to just over six metres.
Steve Topping of Manitoba Water Stewardship says it's unknown territory because the city has never had to deal with such stubborn ice at the same time as the river is cresting.
Officials are hoping gradually rising temperatures will get the ice moving before flood waters arrive.
Ice jams have already caused some flooding in communities around Lockport, north of Winnipeg.
About 800 people from Roseau River First Nation were forced to leave their homes, but half of them have now returned
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story ... ation.html
Last Updated: Saturday, April 4, 2009 | 2:21 PM CT
CBC News
Volunteers have responded to an urgent call for help filling and stacking sandbags in communities along the Red River north of Winnipeg.
As many as 700 people registered Saturday at the South St. Andrews Fire Hall, the hub of emergency preparations in the region, on the final day of a two-day push to complete dikes and create a stockpile of sandbags.
Volunteers were being asked to call (204)-481-0739 before heading down to the fire hall. The sandbagging campaign was taking place mainly in the Red River communities of St. Andrews, West St. Paul and Selkirk.
Paul Guyder, the emergency co-ordinator for region, said once the sandbagging is finished, volunteers will focus their attention on clearing culverts to prepare for flooding.
The river is expected the crest Thursday at levels below what they were during Manitoba's second worst flood in 1979 — but Guyder said a major ice jam could change everything.
"The fear right now is we have to get that ice out of the river. The Amphibex [Excavators] are still working and breaking the ice apart, and everyday we buy with the warm weather and the current, it is thinning the ice down a bit, so when it does start to move, the better chance it'll move right out into the lake," he said.
Sandbagging efforts in Winnipeg — on Kingston Row, Christie Road and Scotia Street — were also progressing at a steady rate, thanks to a wealth of volunteers.
Operators on the city's 311 line say there were enough volunteers Saturday, but help would be appreciated Sunday.
Volunteers are needed in the city because 195 homes are at risk of being flooded due to ice jams.
Gates may open early
Manitoba officials will decide by midweek whether to take the unprecedented step of opening the Winnipeg floodway gates early, before ice on the Red River has melted.
Opening the gates before the crest could spare some Winnipeg neighbourhoods serious flooding as water levels are expected rise to just over six metres.
Steve Topping of Manitoba Water Stewardship says it's unknown territory because the city has never had to deal with such stubborn ice at the same time as the river is cresting.
Officials are hoping gradually rising temperatures will get the ice moving before flood waters arrive.
Ice jams have already caused some flooding in communities around Lockport, north of Winnipeg.
About 800 people from Roseau River First Nation were forced to leave their homes, but half of them have now returned
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story ... ation.html
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SaskatchewanScreamer
Special Features Link
Manitoba Flood Watch 2009: http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/flo ... eshow.html
Manitoba Flood Watch 2009: http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/flo ... eshow.html
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SaskatchewanScreamer
Topic spans: 1950 - 2003
Red River Rising: Manitoba Floods
The Cree called it Miscousipi, Red Water River, and warned early settlers of its hidden capacity for destruction. The river flooded in 1826, forcing the complete evacuation of the 10-year-old Red River colony. But most settlers refused to give up. Winnipeg, the city they built on the Red River's banks, has braved disaster again and again – in 1950, 1966, 1979, and again, dramatically, in 1997.
Topic image reproduced with permission of Natural Resources Canada 2008, courtesy of the Geological Survey of Canada, photographer G.R. Brooks
http://archives.cbc.ca/environment/extr ... opics/670/
A city submerged: Winnipeg and the flood of 1950
Broadcast Date: May 10, 1950
For 51 days, Manitobans fight to hold back the rising waters of the Red. Norwood, East Kildonan, Fort Garry – one by one the dikes fail, until almost a quarter of Winnipeg is underwater. One hundred thousand people flee the flooded area, in the largest mass evacuation in Canadian history. These CBC radio news reports describe the evacuations of St. Vital on May 10, 1950, and Winnipeg itself the day after.
Almost 40,000 people flee Winnipeg on May 11. The river crests three days later at 12.2 feet above channel capacity.
By this time, about 5,000 Canadian army, navy, and air force personnel are engaged in the biggest peacetime operation in Canadian history. They man pumps, build and patrol dikes, and evacuate the residents. HMCS Chippawa, Winnipeg's Naval Reserve, becomes a vital flood-fighting command post. It coordinates the efforts of over 150 ships, including large naval whalers and cutters.
Over one million pounds of equipment and 1,200,000 sandbags are airlifted into Winnipeg from as far away as San Francisco. The Red River, usually about 150 metres wide, becomes a lake 65 kilometres wide and 100 kilometres long.
The flood damages 10,500 homes in Winnipeg alone. Water damages total $50 million - about $600 million in 1997 dollars.
Red River Rising: Manitoba Floods
The Cree called it Miscousipi, Red Water River, and warned early settlers of its hidden capacity for destruction. The river flooded in 1826, forcing the complete evacuation of the 10-year-old Red River colony. But most settlers refused to give up. Winnipeg, the city they built on the Red River's banks, has braved disaster again and again – in 1950, 1966, 1979, and again, dramatically, in 1997.
Topic image reproduced with permission of Natural Resources Canada 2008, courtesy of the Geological Survey of Canada, photographer G.R. Brooks
http://archives.cbc.ca/environment/extr ... opics/670/
A city submerged: Winnipeg and the flood of 1950
Broadcast Date: May 10, 1950
For 51 days, Manitobans fight to hold back the rising waters of the Red. Norwood, East Kildonan, Fort Garry – one by one the dikes fail, until almost a quarter of Winnipeg is underwater. One hundred thousand people flee the flooded area, in the largest mass evacuation in Canadian history. These CBC radio news reports describe the evacuations of St. Vital on May 10, 1950, and Winnipeg itself the day after.
Almost 40,000 people flee Winnipeg on May 11. The river crests three days later at 12.2 feet above channel capacity.
By this time, about 5,000 Canadian army, navy, and air force personnel are engaged in the biggest peacetime operation in Canadian history. They man pumps, build and patrol dikes, and evacuate the residents. HMCS Chippawa, Winnipeg's Naval Reserve, becomes a vital flood-fighting command post. It coordinates the efforts of over 150 ships, including large naval whalers and cutters.
Over one million pounds of equipment and 1,200,000 sandbags are airlifted into Winnipeg from as far away as San Francisco. The Red River, usually about 150 metres wide, becomes a lake 65 kilometres wide and 100 kilometres long.
The flood damages 10,500 homes in Winnipeg alone. Water damages total $50 million - about $600 million in 1997 dollars.
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Ed Mahmoud
Re: Flooding in North Dakota
I thought I saw on TV they built diversion canals around Winnipeg after the big flood.
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SaskatchewanScreamer
Ed Winnipeg did build diversion canals (floodway) as well as a pretty impressive dike but it's the fact that the river is still frozen that's causing them great concern. Much of the city is protected to around eight metres, but persistent river ice, which threatens to bottleneck many portions of the valley, is playing a wild-card role in forecasts. They aren't sure how well the floodway will work, when they open it's gates, with the river still frozen. There is a great possibility of ice jams occuring and if that happens they will dam the river and the water will then spread outwards over land.
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SaskatchewanScreamer
Dozens evacuated as Red River rampages north of Winnipeg
http://www.canada.com/news/national/Doz ... story.html
By Bartley Kives and Jen Skerritt, Winnipeg Free PressApril 12, 2009 8:29 PMCompliments of TD Waterhouse
WINNIPEG — Several shifts in the ice jam north of Selkirk, Man., forced the Red River to inundate dozens of homes in the rural municipalities of St. Andrews and St. Clements early Sunday, forcing some terrified residents to climb on to roofs or cling to hoods of cars as they awaited rescue.
The most disastrous event of this year’s floods in Manitoba — which caused no injuries and claimed no lives even as 44 people were evacuated — began just after midnight Saturday, when an ice jam that had stubbornly clung to Sugar Island north of Selkirk moved downstream to Highway 4 bridge, provincial flood officials said. Selkirk is 30 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
A second shift occurred in the wee hours of the morning as the ice jam moved downstream, sending what one resident called “a tidal wave” gushing towards area homes.
As water levels rose as much as 1.3 metre, massive slabs of ice floated over dikes and on to properties on both sides of the river, flattening garages, snapping trees like twigs and ripping some homes off their stilts.
Thirty five people from 27 homes on the eastern bank of the river north of Selkirk were evacuated, while another nine people in the Breezy Point area on the western bank were rescued after refusing to heed an earlier notice to evacuate voluntarily.
“I think there are people who want to protect their homes and don’t give enough thought (to the consequences),” Don Brennan, the director of Manitoba’s emergency measures organization, said Sunday. “We could have easily lost rescuers today.”
On both sides of the river, the flood water climbed the walls of homes, forcing some residents to climb on to their roofs. Other evacuees climbed on to their living room furniture until rescue crews arrived.
“There’s such a volume of water that came down it looks like a war zone,” said resident Duncan Allan.
St. Clements Mayor Steve Strang said emergency officials were up all night co-ordinating rescue efforts, which included saving one of their own from the hood of his partly submerged truck.
Strang said he’s never seen anything like Sunday’s morning’s deluge and described the damage as devastating.
“It just flooded everything,” he said. “There’s millions of dollars in damage.”
Provincial and municipal emergency officials closed off several roads to traffic Sunday morning, as crews tried to determine the best way to help residents who remained inside their homes.
Regional Municipality of St. Andrews emergency coordinator Paul Guyader said officials initially had difficulty finding out who needed help, since all roads were under water.
That water has since receded, but the threat of another ice jam remains, Brennan said.
“We could have a repeat performance, we don’t know,” he said.
Ice jams simply cannot be predicted, added Steve Topping, who’s coordinating provincial flood-fighting efforts.
In the aftermath of the disaster, resident Roger Trueman waded in at least one foot of water on his home and marvelled at the mammoth ice blocks deposited on his property.
Trueman said he heard the cracking and crunching of river ice in the middle of the night, just before the water hit.
He spent the rest of the night pumping water from his basement as the river rose past his ground-floor windows. He watched as ice slabs pushed ladders, barrels and piles of wood from one side of his property to another.
“I walked into the house and my hip waders were full,” he said.
Neighbour Theresa Bakker’s house was unscathed, but her friends weren’t so lucky.
“They were sitting on their countertops waiting for rescuers to come,” she said.
Darlene Bourne said her husband Barry narrowly escaped the rush of water at about 3 a.m., after he went outside to check the pump inside a dike.
“He saw a tidal wave come. He jumped in the boat (just as the water) got to the top of our dike,” she said, adding her husband was forced to tie the boat to a tree at the end of the driveway, where he waited for rescue crews.
Bourne’s neighbour was forced to crawl out of his truck’s window onto the roof when a sudden surge of water started to fill the vehicle.
Water from the Red River spills over its banks covering this side road near the town of Morris. Rising floodwaters have forced Manitoba to shut down a 90-kilometre stretch of its main Highway 75 link to the United States.
http://www.canada.com/news/national/Doz ... story.html
By Bartley Kives and Jen Skerritt, Winnipeg Free PressApril 12, 2009 8:29 PMCompliments of TD Waterhouse
WINNIPEG — Several shifts in the ice jam north of Selkirk, Man., forced the Red River to inundate dozens of homes in the rural municipalities of St. Andrews and St. Clements early Sunday, forcing some terrified residents to climb on to roofs or cling to hoods of cars as they awaited rescue.
The most disastrous event of this year’s floods in Manitoba — which caused no injuries and claimed no lives even as 44 people were evacuated — began just after midnight Saturday, when an ice jam that had stubbornly clung to Sugar Island north of Selkirk moved downstream to Highway 4 bridge, provincial flood officials said. Selkirk is 30 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
A second shift occurred in the wee hours of the morning as the ice jam moved downstream, sending what one resident called “a tidal wave” gushing towards area homes.
As water levels rose as much as 1.3 metre, massive slabs of ice floated over dikes and on to properties on both sides of the river, flattening garages, snapping trees like twigs and ripping some homes off their stilts.
Thirty five people from 27 homes on the eastern bank of the river north of Selkirk were evacuated, while another nine people in the Breezy Point area on the western bank were rescued after refusing to heed an earlier notice to evacuate voluntarily.
“I think there are people who want to protect their homes and don’t give enough thought (to the consequences),” Don Brennan, the director of Manitoba’s emergency measures organization, said Sunday. “We could have easily lost rescuers today.”
On both sides of the river, the flood water climbed the walls of homes, forcing some residents to climb on to their roofs. Other evacuees climbed on to their living room furniture until rescue crews arrived.
“There’s such a volume of water that came down it looks like a war zone,” said resident Duncan Allan.
St. Clements Mayor Steve Strang said emergency officials were up all night co-ordinating rescue efforts, which included saving one of their own from the hood of his partly submerged truck.
Strang said he’s never seen anything like Sunday’s morning’s deluge and described the damage as devastating.
“It just flooded everything,” he said. “There’s millions of dollars in damage.”
Provincial and municipal emergency officials closed off several roads to traffic Sunday morning, as crews tried to determine the best way to help residents who remained inside their homes.
Regional Municipality of St. Andrews emergency coordinator Paul Guyader said officials initially had difficulty finding out who needed help, since all roads were under water.
That water has since receded, but the threat of another ice jam remains, Brennan said.
“We could have a repeat performance, we don’t know,” he said.
Ice jams simply cannot be predicted, added Steve Topping, who’s coordinating provincial flood-fighting efforts.
In the aftermath of the disaster, resident Roger Trueman waded in at least one foot of water on his home and marvelled at the mammoth ice blocks deposited on his property.
Trueman said he heard the cracking and crunching of river ice in the middle of the night, just before the water hit.
He spent the rest of the night pumping water from his basement as the river rose past his ground-floor windows. He watched as ice slabs pushed ladders, barrels and piles of wood from one side of his property to another.
“I walked into the house and my hip waders were full,” he said.
Neighbour Theresa Bakker’s house was unscathed, but her friends weren’t so lucky.
“They were sitting on their countertops waiting for rescuers to come,” she said.
Darlene Bourne said her husband Barry narrowly escaped the rush of water at about 3 a.m., after he went outside to check the pump inside a dike.
“He saw a tidal wave come. He jumped in the boat (just as the water) got to the top of our dike,” she said, adding her husband was forced to tie the boat to a tree at the end of the driveway, where he waited for rescue crews.
Bourne’s neighbour was forced to crawl out of his truck’s window onto the roof when a sudden surge of water started to fill the vehicle.
Water from the Red River spills over its banks covering this side road near the town of Morris. Rising floodwaters have forced Manitoba to shut down a 90-kilometre stretch of its main Highway 75 link to the United States.
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SaskatchewanScreamer
Up to 600 flood fighters needed
City calls for help
By SUN MEDIA
The City of Winnipeg is asking all potential flood fighting volunteers to join the battle today.
The city says it needs between 500 and 600 volunteers today since spring flood conditions dramatically worsened over the past few days.
About 40 properties now require higher dikes in the north and central areas of the city and 60 new properties previously not deemed at risk now need dikes as well.
The plea for help comes after more than 200 homes were damaged or destroyed by massive ice chunks and flood waters in communities outside of the city since Sunday.
Surprisingly high water levels from south of the city on the Red and Assiniboine rivers are now expected to cause a higher than anticipated crest in Winnipeg.
The Red River rose 0.55 metres (1.8 ft.) in downtown Winnipeg between Monday and Tuesday mornings alone.
The city has blamed the quick rise mainly on rapidly rising flows on streams such as Sturgeon Creek and the La Salle River.
Provincial flood forecasts now predict the Red River will crest at 6.6 m (21.8 ft.) at James Avenue in Winnipeg April 16 to 17, thanks in part to ice floes blocking water from its regular path.
The crest on the Assiniboine River is expected to occur within a few days as well.
Potential volunteers are asked to call 311 or 1-877-311-4WPG, if outside of the city.
Many pathways and foot bridges in the city have been closed due to rising water levels, including the Assiniboine Park foot bridge, Bunn’s Creek pathway, Omand’s Creek, and Sturgeon Creek
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/winnipe ... 20771.html
City calls for help
By SUN MEDIA
The City of Winnipeg is asking all potential flood fighting volunteers to join the battle today.
The city says it needs between 500 and 600 volunteers today since spring flood conditions dramatically worsened over the past few days.
About 40 properties now require higher dikes in the north and central areas of the city and 60 new properties previously not deemed at risk now need dikes as well.
The plea for help comes after more than 200 homes were damaged or destroyed by massive ice chunks and flood waters in communities outside of the city since Sunday.
Surprisingly high water levels from south of the city on the Red and Assiniboine rivers are now expected to cause a higher than anticipated crest in Winnipeg.
The Red River rose 0.55 metres (1.8 ft.) in downtown Winnipeg between Monday and Tuesday mornings alone.
The city has blamed the quick rise mainly on rapidly rising flows on streams such as Sturgeon Creek and the La Salle River.
Provincial flood forecasts now predict the Red River will crest at 6.6 m (21.8 ft.) at James Avenue in Winnipeg April 16 to 17, thanks in part to ice floes blocking water from its regular path.
The crest on the Assiniboine River is expected to occur within a few days as well.
Potential volunteers are asked to call 311 or 1-877-311-4WPG, if outside of the city.
Many pathways and foot bridges in the city have been closed due to rising water levels, including the Assiniboine Park foot bridge, Bunn’s Creek pathway, Omand’s Creek, and Sturgeon Creek
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/winnipe ... 20771.html
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SaskatchewanScreamer
A vast area of the province of Manitoba now looks like a giant lake:
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/manitob ... 22661.html
First pictures show the benefits of the floodway....later pictures show what it's like outside the city of Winnipeg's protective dike/floodway. Almost every river in Manitoba, to a certain degree, is flowing over it's banks.
The flood of 2009 now appears as though it will be the second highest on record.
Alf Warkentin, the province's senior flood forecaster, said yesterday this year's flood -- at least from St. Jean-Baptiste to the floodway inlet in St. Norbert -- will surpass the floods of 1950 and 1979 as the second-largest flood witnessed in Manitoba since record-keeping began in the 1800s.
http://www.vancouversun.com/More+evacua ... story.html
Winnipeg's forecasted crest was again increased yesterday, by nearly a foot to 22.6 James Avenue level. The 1997 flood crested in the city at 24.5 feet. The normal summer level of the Red River is 6.5 feet.
Sadly an elderly couple's car was swept off a road by flood waters and both drowned.
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/manitob ... 22661.html
First pictures show the benefits of the floodway....later pictures show what it's like outside the city of Winnipeg's protective dike/floodway. Almost every river in Manitoba, to a certain degree, is flowing over it's banks.
The flood of 2009 now appears as though it will be the second highest on record.
Alf Warkentin, the province's senior flood forecaster, said yesterday this year's flood -- at least from St. Jean-Baptiste to the floodway inlet in St. Norbert -- will surpass the floods of 1950 and 1979 as the second-largest flood witnessed in Manitoba since record-keeping began in the 1800s.
http://www.vancouversun.com/More+evacua ... story.html
Winnipeg's forecasted crest was again increased yesterday, by nearly a foot to 22.6 James Avenue level. The 1997 flood crested in the city at 24.5 feet. The normal summer level of the Red River is 6.5 feet.
Sadly an elderly couple's car was swept off a road by flood waters and both drowned.
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