Recent heavy rain has forced a southeastern Manitoba community into a state of emergency.
The RM of La Broquerie, approximately 70 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg, has been hit hard by rain which blasted the southern part of the province last month.
“It’s fairly alarming. In fall it’s a unique situation,” RM of La Broquerie emergency coordinator Louis Tetrault said. “I don’t believe in the history of La Broquerie there’s been this kind of a situation with rain and water levels in fall, it’s very unusual.”
The water levels are threatening several homes in the community of Zhoda.
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Steven Beally’s front yard, driveway, and front road are completely submerged under water.
“We’ve lived here for just over a year, coming up to two years, and we’ve never seen it this bad before,” Beally said. “As you can see the roads are a river.
“Thinking about trading my truck for a boat.”
Beally said the water began rising around his home about two weeks ago. With more rain in the forecast for this weekend, Beally and a group of volunteers were working around the clock sandbagging his home on Friday.
“In the past two hours it’s still coming up,” Rosalie Stelmeck said, who volunteered to sandbag around Beally’s home. “So we’re kind of in a race for time here to make sure it doesn’t get close to the house.”
Stelmeck owns a non-profit organization called ‘See a Need Fill a Need’. She said she and other volunteers will be going around homes in the community to see if anyone needs help.
Beally says it’s been a stressful ordeal, especially with more rain forecast for this weekend.
“In layman’s terms it sucks,” he said. “It’s (worrisome). It’s hard to sleep at night, (it) causes a lot of anxiety.”
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