The City of Winnipeg has been busying unloading pallets of sandbags for residents looking to protect their homes from the spring thaw.
Nicole Gariepy was at the Waverly location Monday afternoon. She’s had water in her basement before, and wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“There’s so much snow piled up that I don’t know where it’s going to start leaking in to,” Gariepy told Global News.
She grabbed eight bags in hopes of protecting her Transcona home.
“I keep checking, seeing if there’s water pooling outside,” she said. “Now I’ve got sandbags, so I’m going to put those just at my front step and I should be okay.”
There are three locations available for residents to pick up the free sandbags.
• 1220 Pacific Ave. (East approach)
• 1090 Thomas Ave. (Entrance approach)
• 1539 Waverley St. (Visitor parking lot, next to recycling bins)
However, experts say so far the weather is in our favour.
“Ideal temperatures would look like very much what we’re getting right now,” says Jay Doering, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Manitoba.
“If temperatures hovered just above zero that would lead to a very gentle melt if that could persist for a couple weeks,” he says. “We would need a lot more precipitation and we would need it to melt very quickly.”
As of Monday afternoon, there have been no reports of overland flooding making it to the city.