Timing of blizzard couldn’t be worse as Manitoba communities try to stave off flooding

The Rural Municipality of Morris just got through one flood threat with the crest of the Red River last week, and while Reeve Ralph Groening said the community isn’t pleased it will have to prepare for an imminent mid-April blizzard, it is doing what it can to get ready.

“The deal with a major storm is people need to stay home, not do anything silly — and we’ll prepare. Again, again.” Groening told 680 CJOB’s The Start.

“We don’t like it.”

Groening told Global News last week that being prepared for a flood is a fact of life in the area, but he said Monday that a blizzard like the one predicted, which could bring more than 50 centimetres of snow to parts of the province, is a different experience entirely.

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Groening said he hopes the coming snow will melt slowly.

“I’ve talked lots about floods and how we’re preparing — we have, we did, and we are,” he said.

“This snowmelt is really, really tough to prepare for. We’ll just be on guard and really hope for the best.

“This is new territory for us — really new territory.”

1:07 Flood warning in St. Jean-Baptiste, Morris

Flood expert Jay Doering says the track of the storm will have an impact on the flood outlook, and that while there are many unknowns, the storm is definitely coming at a bad time as far as spring flooding is concerned.

“It is, in all probability, going to further increase the water levels that we’re seeing on both the Red and the Assiniboine Rivers,” Doering told Global News.

“That timing will depend on whether the additional inflow comes in just as the crest is starting to recede or whether that inflow comes in on top of the existing crest.”

Doering said there is not much that Manitobans can do at this point other than wait and see. Yet with storms like this becoming more common, he said the province needs to ensure that its flood infrastructure can handle a blizzard of this magnitude and other, similar weather events.

“Unfortunately, we really do need to sit tight for the moment — wait and see the track of the storm and the amount of precipitation that it delivers,” he said.

“But it’s not good, and the timing isn’t great, because we’re basically approaching the flood peak.”

2:02 Manitoba activates Red River floodway