A long, miserable winter of heavy snow has begun to reap awful dividends across the Prairies in the form of ice jams on swollen rivers and the inevitable spectre of serious flooding.
The looming disaster unfolded slowly – a road closed here, a house washed out there, a few neighbourhoods evacuated – but like a low-budget horror movie, everybody knows the big boogey-man lurks just around the corner.
In Manitoba, where there’s a forecast for rain on the weekend, the damage started to unfold early Friday morning when it was discovered a home north of Winnipeg had fallen to flood water from the swollen Red River.
Ice jams on the river forced water over the banks overnight in the Breezy Point area north of Selkirk.
Crews tried to save the property with emergency dams, but a second surge of water forced them to abandon their efforts. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
The situation has prompted the province to announce the Red River floodway gates will be raised for the first time this year at 9 a.m. Saturday morning.
"The gradual raising of the gates will protect Winnipeg while keeping river levels south of the floodway inlet at or below natural levels," said the province in a release.
In St. Clements, Mayor Steve Strang worried as he watched a new float of ice headed head his way up the Red River.
"We’re doing as many homes as possible," he said. "It’s something we expected to do and we’re prepared to do. But we’re also busy trying to complete a clay dike which is north of … the area where we did the buyouts in 2009."
Back then the province bought out a number of at-risk homes. Strang said it turns out that was a good idea – that property is already under water.
In the rural municipality of St. Andrews, two homes were evacuated Friday and Reeve Don Forfar wasn’t sure if more would follow.
"It depends on what happens. As you know, ice jams leapfrog down the river. The water levels are going up three or four inches every hour."
Residents of some flood-prone areas of Moose Jaw, Sask., were asked to leave Friday because the Moose Jaw River was spilling its banks in some spots.
"It’s a river of turns, so what’s happening is the ice has been breaking up and now it’s jamming up and damming up in the corners," said deputy fire chief Rod Montgomery.
"Certainly we’re seeing a greater flow of water so because of that it’s over the banks now and creeping into the residents’ areas."
But some people such as Rick Klein elected to ignore the call to leave and stayed to sandbag their homes.
Klein said once he saw the river rising Thursday, he called in about 20 people to help.
"We kind of won today," he said Friday afternoon. "We had a battle for six to eight hours fighting the ice and the water conditions and we persevered."
But despite keeping the river water away, he still ended up with a flooded basement because the sewer system backed up.
Later in the day, water levels began to recede again after the ice jam began to break up. It left a bizarre scene on Klein’s front yard.
"There’s these hunks of ice probably 10 to 15 feet wide by two feet high, scattered all over the yard, against walls and trees," he said.
"It looks like it got blown up."
In spite of the receding water, the evacuation order was still in effect.
"The Saskatchewan Watershed Authority has said there could be another surge later in the day," said Montgomery.
Meanwhile, some huge chunks of ice from the jam slammed into and destroyed the CPR dam and wiped out a bridge at the Deer Ridge golf course.
Other areas in the province seeing rising water were east of Saskatoon, Osler and east of Martensville.
Reeve Mel Henry of the Rural Municipality of Corman Park said there were reports of water rising Langham, where two homes have already been flooded.
Southern Alberta, parts of which were submerged by horrible flooding last summer, was steeling itself for problems this weekend.
Doug Henderson, assistant manger of Cypress County, was warning area residents to be on alerts and watching their local creeks.
"We will have people out there monitoring culverts on roads and bridges," he said. "Just to make sure our infrastructure is protected, but in terms of monitoring peoples’ homes, they have to monitor their own situation."
About 100 volunteers were to meet at the Cypress County office in Dunmore on Saturday to fill sandbags. Those bags will be available to county residents free of charge.
Despite the fears and the worries, officials in all three provinces insist they are far better prepared to deal with flooding than they were last summer or the summer before.
Larry Johannson, mayor of the Manitoba community of Selkirk, said drilling and use of the amphibex machine have helped break up the ice as it moves upstream.
"When that ice started letting loose, it went fast," he said. It went by our place Thursday and it went out good. This morning it was out at Newbridge, but now I’m getting reports that it’s close to Breezy Point."
But despite all the preparations possible, provincial flood officials said sometimes there will be damage and loss.
"There’s certain times that Mother Nature calls the shots at the end of the day, especially when it comes to ice jamming," said Chuck Sanderson, head of emergency measures for Manitoba, of the flooding near Selkirk.
"So it’s not (a question of being) caught off guard – every now and then Mother Nature has her way."
Almost everyone agrees the best defence is a good offence.
"We have a constant need for volunteers," said Randy Hull who is overseeing sandbagging efforts in Winnipeg. "We need 300 people for today, 200 for Saturday. This will be a continuing need through Sunday and into next week."
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