A western Manitoba community is preparing for flooding to potentially worsen, as it cleans up from last week’s storms and braces for another unpredictable week of weather.
The Town of Minnedosa, Man., declared a state of local emergency on Sunday, following days of downpour and rising water levels in the local river.
“We just decided that a state of emergency gives us the authority to do what we need to do and bring in (the) machinery to do what you have to do to save people and homes,” said Minnedosa Mayor Ken Cameron.
“I think we’re in pretty good shape for what we’re expecting, but that changes daily.”
The town’s state of local emergency will remain in effect until Aug. 4, unless it opts to renew the state for 30 additional days, it said on social media Sunday.
In that update, the town also said it expects its share of the Little Saskatchewan River to see high water flows, with an expected increase of 60 cm, or just under two feet.
The river is expected to crest on Monday and remain at that level for two days. In preparation for peak levels, residents undertook the “huge” project of readying flood-prone areas over the weekend, the mayor said.
There are “half a dozen spots along the river,” among others in the town, that require sandbagging or other water barriers, Cameron said, adding that he does not have an exact count on how many were deployed.
“This year, we’re in pretty good shape and I know there’s always going to be some anxiety because nobody wants that kind of a problem, but I think right now people are a lot more at ease just because we did a fair bit of prep,” the mayor of Minnedosa told Global News.
For now, he said, sandbagging efforts are winding down momentarily, as the town deals with downed and damaged trees.
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Cameron said town officials are regularly meeting online with the Manitoba government to discuss the floods. He said the province has ensured town’s needs are met.
The nearby City of Brandon also declared a state of local emergency on Sunday in anticipation of the rising water. Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett told Global News he believes preparation efforts can be “accomplished on time” as crews continually monitor the situation.
Much of western Manitoba has seen flooding recently, following a wetter-than-average end to June.
The “fairly significant rainfall” in recent days is keeping soil in those areas from absorbing water, Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), said.
“There’s no capacity of the soil to really absorb any of that, which is running right off and into the rivers and across this sort of overland flooding of areas and really causing lots of issues, more than anything else,” he said.
“We were very wet and we’ve continued to put precipitation into those communities.”
Long, dry and windy days are necessary for the soil to dehydrate, according to the meteorologist, who said “unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be in the forecast” long-term.
“We would get a couple of dry days sort of setting up over the next couple (of days), but then we get more potential for severe weather spreading in from Alberta (and) Saskatchewan as we go towards the end of the week,” Proctor said.
Summer storm season tends to end in early August, he continued.
“I would expect us to see summer severe weather season to be a little prolonged this year, with all this moisture availability that we’ve got out there right now. So, I would suspect probably lots of scattered storms out there,” Proctor added.
“Depending (on) if you get underneath those storms or not, you’re going to get more than normal precipitation. If you stay in one of those dry axes, things are going to be quite nice for you. So, it’s going to very much be a hit and miss kind of situation.”
On Friday, Ottawa announced it will approve a request for federal assistance to manage flood responses in Manitoba’s Parkland region.
A small team of Canadian Armed Forces members, as well as the veteran-led disaster management Team Rubicon, will be deployed to affected communities, Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski said.
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