One-in-200-year flash flood drenches western Manitoba municipality

Residents in a western Manitoba community are reeling from a storm that flooded the town and left some stranded due to washed out roadways.

The municipality of Minitonas-Bowsman declared a state of emergency Monday morning after nearly 150 millimetres of rain fell Sunday night, flooding homes and washing out highways.

Power was out for multiple residents in the community of Minitonas, located about 15 kilometres east of Swan River, the municipality said in a social media post Monday morning.

A notice issued by the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization on Sunday warned the area could see more than 80 mm of precipitation. Actual rainfall levels were nearly double that estimate.

Residents were asked to shelter in place by the municipality as the rain fell over several hours

Minitonas resident Ray Dietz woke up to the rain drenching the community Sunday night. He checked his basement and discovered it was quickly filling with water.

“I walked out to my backyard deck and it was just a lake,” Dietz said Monday morning. “It’s probably three or four feet deep right now.”

Jennifer Kowal, an operational meteorologist for Environment Canada, called the rainfall a one-in-200-year event. The community normally gets about 90 mm of rain over the course of a month. About 147 mm fell Sunday night into Monday morning.

“This is not a common event. It’s actually a very extreme event,” Kowal said.

About 3,400 customers were without power in more than 100 outages across the Westman and Parkland regions, Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Peter Chura said. The extreme weather damaged power lines and poles in between the Virden and Swan River areas.

“Flooding and road closures are preventing our crews from accessing some damaged areas, and high water levels and running water may cause more damage throughout the day,” Chura said in an email Monday.

The combination of downed power lines and flooding may have necessitated de-energizing other lines for safety reasons, which could result in more outages, Chura said.

A ruptured gas line in Minitonas prompted an emergency evacuation for some residents and a boil-water advisory is in place, the municipality wrote on social media.

Crews were not able to reach the site of the gas line but flew into Swan River by helicopter to shut off the flow of gas remotely, Hydro said later Monday.

The Crown utility said staffers from other parts of the province have been brought to the area to expedite repairs.

Several highways in the area are closed due to flooding, including Highway 10, from Highway 366 to Renwer outside Minitonas. A bridge on the west side of the community is under water, said Minitonas-area resident Tanya Chernyk.

Many of the roads in the community of about 500 are washed out and there’s no way in or out of town due to flooding on the surrounding highways, Chernyk said.

“People are very concerned that if they need help people can’t get to them,” she said. “It’s pretty concerning.”

Environment Canada issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Duck Mountain Provincial Park, the Rural Municipality of Mountain and Municipality of Minitonas-Bowsman Sunday night, warning the storm could bring baseball-sized hail. As of Monday morning, Environment Canada had received reports of golf ball-sized hail in the Minitonas area.

Dietz said the community, located in Duck Mountain Provincial Park’s valley, gets regular warnings about rainfall, but it doesn’t always materialize.

“Everybody’s pretty shocked,” he said. “Nobody really expected this to happen.”

With no rain in the forecast for the next few days, Dietz said the town’s focus will be cleaning up and pumping out water from homes and yards.

The flash flooding will force some farmers to reseed their fields and claim crop damage due to the hail, Keystone Agricultural Producers vice-president Jake Ayre said.

Ayre said typically severe weather shows up at the end of June, not the beginning.

“In an year where it’s already expected to be one of the most expensive for farmers, it’s an added stress,” he said.

Meantime, the town of Virden in the Westman region is cleaning up after a windstorm knocked a dozen trees on homes and in the community’s cemetery.

Environment Canada recorded 93 kilometre-per-hour wind gusts on Sunday.

The town, located about 290 kilometres west of Winnipeg, had to call in contractors to help with the clean up and some branches knocked over headstones in the Virden Cemetery, deputy mayor Marc Savy said.

“We always get that northwest wind, but I don’t remember it being this bad,” Savy said.

One tree reportedly fell on a home, but most of the other fallen branches landed on roads and sidewalks.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca