Geography 12 - Hmmmm. Aren't we doing flooding now?

More Manitoba homes evacuated as Red River rises

From the CBC

About 50 homes north of Winnipeg were evacuated Saturday morning because of rising water levels, as a provincial agency opened the gates of the Red River Floodway.

The homes, mostly on Jenny Road in the Netley Creek area of the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews, are no longer accessible by road and residents are having to leave by boat. Evacuations began Saturday morning around 8 a.m. CT.

An elderly couple was forced from their home and left by boat late Friday night when flood waters invaded their property.

It was part of a tense night for emergency teams in the area as ice jams developed and then broke up several times, creating rapid and unpredictable rises and falls in water levels.

"It surprises you every time: where and when it's going to stop," Darcy Hardman, the emergency response coordinator in St. Andrews, told CBC News. "We just go with the punches."

On Saturday, emergency officials were asking other homeowners in the area to be prepared to leave quickly, gathering medications and other personal items of value so that they can move out at a moment's notice.

In St. Clements, on the other side of the Red River, there were no evacuations overnight despite earlier alerts. All 40 houses that were considered at risk as ice jams threatened to cause backup flooding were still high and dry Saturday morning.

St. Clements Mayor Steve Strang told CBC that he gives the credit for that fact to residents taking a more proactive approach on sandbagging this year compared to past years, when many homes were flooded.

"I was so pleased we didn't have to send our emergency people in there to save other people's lives again this year," he said. "To relive that would have been totally wrong…

"I can remember people standing on their countertops, their roofs, waiting to be saved in 2009."

Floodway gates open

Meanwhile, the floodway designed to divert water from the rising Red River around the capital city of Winnipeg was activated as planned Saturday morning.

Manitoba Water Stewardship had announced late Friday that the Red River Floodway would open its inlet control structure at 9 am CT, with a horn sounded half an hour beforehand to alert neighbours.

"The gradual raising of the gates is designed to protect the city of Winnipeg while holding water levels south of the floodway inlet to natural levels," officials said in an information bulletin Friday.