Some communities in southern Manitoba are still preparing for more flood impacts, while others are beginning to assess the damage after another storm moved to the region this week.
The city of Powerview-Pine Falls has erected barricades to protect its treatment plant, Deputy Mayor Lori Finkbeiner told CBC News.
The village of St. Clements, which held an emergency meeting Tuesday after Environment Canada issued rain and wind warnings in much of southern Manitoba, has not reported damage to Lake Winnipeg’s southern basin, emergency coordinator Tyler Freeman said.
The municipality was lucky – the waves on Lake Winnipeg were not as high as the province feared they might reach, he said.
The only problem area was near Patricia Beach, where the municipality installed a pump and property was not damaged.
In the rural municipality of Gimli, a section of Highway 222 was closed after a swollen river damaged the road.
“Now that the rain has stopped, I think our drainage systems will be able to handle it,” said Mayor Lynn Greenberg.
A whirlwind swirled in a swollen river near where it passes through a gutter under Highway 222 in the rural municipality of Gimli on Wednesday. (Submitted by Andy Blick)
Despite the clearing of Highway 222, access to the road in the area has not been significantly affected, Greenberg said.
The municipal development department has not yet assessed the damage.
“The worst thing right now is that farmers can’t go out into the fields and are already more than a month behind in sowing,” Greenberg said.
Farmers need about four or five days of dry weather, he said.
A spokesman for the Lakeside village council said the evacuation order for residents around Lake Dauphin had been completed and all residents of Ocher and Crescent Cove had returned.
Strong northerly winds have raised water levels on the southern side of Lake Dauphin, east of Dauphin and northeast of Reading Mountain.
The municipality is still specifying how many properties have been affected by the lake wave.
The Winnipeg River is now a “huge, huge pool”
In the southeastern part, the Whiteshell area remains under 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.
“A huge, huge pool has been created,” said DJ Seales, standing by the inflated Winnipeg River at the Seven Sisters generation plant on Wednesday.
DJ Seales is the owner of Barrier Bay Resort and president of the North Whiteshell Business Association. (Gary Solilak / CBC)
Seals is the owner of Barrier Bay Resort and president of the North Whiteshell Business Association. All resorts in its forest have been closed due to a slight rise in water in recent days.
His lodge has managed to remain relatively unharmed, although the same cannot be said of his fate. Some property owners on the Winnipeg River were even worse.
“Every dock is almost gone for everyone,” Seals said. “Then there is the damage along the river bank, ours happens there, we lose all kinds of property only from the water that washes it away.”
Seals says so far most other cottage owners have sandbags and perimeter dikes.
“We monitor it every day and check if it will hold and it looks like that,” he said. “Yesterday there were waves of two feet and they held up well, so [we’re] with hope and confidence that it will happen [hold up]”
DJ Seales said the inflated Winnipeg River overflowed its roads and landed in and around the Seven Sisters generator station, paving new trails through the surrounding forests. (Gary Solilak / CBC)
Siels suggested that all guests with upcoming reservations in the area be patient if they face cancellations. Guests who manage to enter the hut if they open the next moment must also be prepared for a different experience.
“The big piece will be after that,” he said. It may not look like in other years, because repairs, cleaning, etc.
The lake of forests can rise
On the other side of the border in Ontario, the city of Kenora issued a warning that the water level in the forest lake could rise by another 15 to 21 centimeters next week.
“We are concerned about rising water levels on many of the city’s roads, some of which have seen a significant rise in water levels over the past 24 hours,” the city said in a statement.
The city advises residents of Sedesky Road, Wildwood Drive, West Bay Road and Second West Bay Road to monitor their homes for possible flooding.
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