Students pitch in to help sandbag

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This article was published 27/03/2009 (6041 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEAR SELKIRK, MB — More than 100 Winnipeg-area high school students took an unexpected field trip today to help sandbag several homes threated by ice jams on the Red River.

Two busloads of teens arrived en masse just after 9:30 and quickly dropped their backpacks to get down to work.

Students from Calvin Christian, West Kildonan and Lord Selkirk formed a human chain around the home of Audra and Trent Goodbrandson and began piling up bags while laughing, joking and singing songs.

"When they showed up I just got tears in my eyes," said Audra.

The Salvation Army also arrived later in the morning, bringing hot soup, sandwiches and coffee for the volunteers.

By 1 p.m. a 1.2-metre barrier had been built on top of the berm the family constructed following serious flooding in 2007.

"We haven’t seen water build up like this before," said Trent, noting the massive glacier-like ice fragments that have formed on the river.

He hopes the dike will help keep the interior of his home dry — but said flooding earlier this week due to an ice jam near Lockport has him concerned.

River Road homeowner Kevin Lusk, who lives just meters from where the ice-jam forced water over the Red’s banks, scrambled to remove piles of soggy, steaming pink carpet this afternoon. He got about two inches of water all over his main floor, and, with no power, gas or heat, he resisted attempts by the local government to get him to leave. Instead, he stayed up all night Thursday to keep generators running so the watery house wouldn’t freeze, causing more damage.

Next door, Gail Masson’s garage and driveway were little more than ice cubes. Water half-submerged her garage, rushed in to her basement windows and froze before she had time to get it all pumped out.

She had to be rescued by Zodiak boat Wednesday morning but was back today to help Lusk and his wife.

Both were thrilled to learn throught the grapevine that the RM of St. Andrews was speeding to build a temporary dike on the lowest part of River Road to stop flood waters from future ice jams or the looming crest on its way from North Dakota.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

—  With fiiles from staff