Communities north of the city along the Red River are keeping a close eye on the rising river levels and ice jams moving downstream.
“The high water events affect some of our assets that are along the waterfront, for one,” Selkirk mayor Larry Johannson told Global News.
“There’s a couple of seniors’ blocks there that we look after, so we’re protecting them and our Selkirk Park.”
A major ice jam that was pushing against the Selkirk bridge Wednesday has now moved on overnight, causing water levels to fluctuate.
“It went down two feet and then ironically it went up two feet almost right away because of the water coming from the south,” Johannson said.
A provincial worker told Global News between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning, the water levels rose 1.75 metres on the Red River near Sugar Island, just north of Selkirk.
Johannson says while there is no threat to properties in the Selkirk area, he does have some concern about what may happen if the ice jam reaches communities downstream.
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“The only thing I worry about is our neighbours on Netley Creek. Netley Creek is an area that’s prone to flooding,” he said.
“I’m hoping that this gets past there before the big water comes down.”
Across the Red River, there is some concern in the Rural Municipality of St. Clements, as the ice jam has forced Cook’s Creek to flood out.
RM of St. Clements mayor Debbie Fiebelkorn says the opening of the Red River Floodway could bring an elevated level of risk for their community.
“It’s nothing very serious at this point in time, but I can tell you with the opening of the floodway the water probably will rise and it could cause us some grief once that floodway water comes through, because that outlet is in our municipality.
“So once that outlet hits the river, we could have some issues.”
St. Clements emergency coordinator Tyler Freeman says they’ve been monitoring the situation closely, checking on properties and at-risk areas. He says they’ll have sandbags ready for residents, if needed.
“We haven’t seen this amount of snow and this type of thaw and just the way it’s been draining this year… So it’s a little bit of a reminder what kind of the norm is for here,” Freeman said.
“We’re doing whatever we can to be ready.”
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