Water reaches critical level

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This article was published 09/04/2009 (6268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba flood fighters are keeping their fingers crossed that river-raising ice jams won’t cause homes to flood and city sewers to back up over the next day or so.

"The next 24 hours, perhaps the next 48 hours, are going to be absolutely critical," Steve Ashton, minister responsible for the Emergency Measures Organization, told reporters Wednesday afternoon after the province scrambled to raise the Red River Floodway gates earlier than intended.

A surprise rise in the Red River at St. Norbert Wednesday morning sent provincial officials scrambling to partially raise the gates by early afternoon.

City staff informed the provincial government at an 11 a.m. meeting that river levels in south Winnipeg had climbed to the equivalent of 20 feet at James Avenue, greatly increasing the threat of flooding and sewer backup.

By 12:30 p.m., with little notice to affected municipalities, the province sounded the horn at the floodway inlet in south Winnipeg indicating that the gates would be raised. And by 1 p.m. the process had begun.

Provincial officials had said that they would operate the floodway — despite the risk of ice jams — when they felt river levels would exceed 20 feet at James Avenue within a 24-hour period. But by Wednesday morning, levels were two feet higher than expected in south Winnipeg.

"This meant that we had to move rather quickly," Ashton said.

The province was confronted with a delicate balancing act.

If it fully raised the gates, it increased the odds of an ice jam forming within the floodway — likely at the St. Mary’s Road Bridge — reducing its capacity.

So officials decided on a partial raising of the floodway gates to reduce river flows within Winnipeg without — they hope — the ice jams.

"Our operation is planned to stabilize James Avenue to 18.5 and that should be accomplished by (Thursday) morning," said Steve Topping, the province’s top flood fighter.

Of particular concern is a 400-metre ice pan, 60 to 75 centimetres thick, parked right against the floodway inlet control structure south of the city.

"It covers the full face of the inlet structure, both gates… and it seems very stationary," said Topping, adding that officials didn’t expect the ice to disappear for 48 hours.

Premier Gary Doer said he was told first thing Wednesday the gates would not be raised immediately, but that changed about two hours later.

Doer, Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen and Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard toured the flood zone yesterday from Emerson to north of Selkirk.

Doer said when the group touched down in Morris, he was advised provincial engineers had decided the floodway gates needed to be raised to prevent imminent flooding in the city.

"The jamming of ice in the city would have meant a risk to the sewer system and it would have meant a risk to localized flooding," Doer said. "Putting water through the floodway as they are right now represents a risk for ice jamming in the floodway. We have lots of equipment there to try to manage that."

Lockport, St. Clements and St. Andrews officials said they’re supposed to get 24 to 48 hours notice when water starts to flow into the floodway when the gates are activated. More water in the floodway means more flowing out of the floodway outlet at Lockport and potential for more flooding in the Selkirk area should there be another ice jam.

"If I had my choice, the floodway wouldn’t be open and the Amphibexes would still be here working," St. Andrews Reeve Don Forfar said. "But I’m a politician. I’m not an engineer."

Forfar and others added that using the floodway was the best option because the threat of flooding damage in the city could not be ignored.

The province’s two Amphibex icebreaking machines are in Winnipeg to respond to ice jams.

One tried to get onto the still-frozen Red River near the Redwood Bridge Wednesday afternoon, but it couldn’t be launched.

The excavating machine was to carve out a trough on the river between the Redwood Bridge and the Louise Bridge. Portions of the ice near the Redwood Bridge are 60 centimetres thick.

After several tries, crews pulled the plug about 2:45 p.m., when a flatbed truck couldn’t safely back up to the river’s edge to launch the Amphibex.

Three bridges — the Louise, Redwood and South Perimeter — remain the focus of Winnipeg’s anxiety as the city waits to see whether the Red River rises high enough to push ice out of the city — but not so high as to threaten low-lying properties.

 

— With files from Bruce Owen

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca