Nine days of being marooned driving couple stir-crazy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/04/2009 (6330 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MELVIN Edel can’t stand the sight of it any longer — and the crest hasn’t even arrived yet.

"It’s no fun looking out all your windows and looking at water all the time," said Edel, a semi-retired cattle farmer south of Morris, whose home is surrounded by flood waters.

Mel and Elaine Edel have been cut off from the world since a week last Tuesday. "I hauled a couple cattle to the auction mart Tuesday morning (April 7) and the water was over the road by evening," he said. "The water rose two-and-a-half feet in one day."

Their only access to and from their farm is a 14-foot fishing boat with a 7.5-horsepower outboard motor. But the waves on the flood plain, and all the debris in the water — lumber, cans, dead livestock, trees — makes getting around by boat difficult. There’s also a lot of straw in the water that clogs boat propellers.

The Edels aren’t alone. It’s a full-fledged flood now, said Kerry Eidse, who farms near Rosenort on the west side of the Red River, versus the east side where the Edels reside.

"The water is going up and people are getting very concerned because we’re reaching some very high levels," said Eidse, who is also using a boat to get around, when necessary.

"Two days ago, we thought we were still OK. But they revised the forecast and now we’re above 1979 levels. We’re into an area where it’s become a flood," he said.

That’s when it starts to get dicey for folks living outside town ring dikes, Eidse said. "So far we haven’t lost any properties except for outbuildings. The next six inches are the ones that will start hurting for some people, if we get any good-sized waves."

Meanwhile, all the Edels can do is wait. Their home is built on a mound high enough to protect them against a flood greater than the one in 1997. "I don’t believe in those dikes. I could never sleep behind one of those… with icebergs floating around. I don’t need that at my age."

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So how does the couple spend so much time around the house? They clean. "We’re cleaning stuff in the house that we’ve never even seen before," Edel said. "People keep phoning and asking how I’m doing. To tell you the truth, if it weren’t for my wife I’d probably be in the nuthouse by now."

His sump pump operates about six times a night, keeping water out of the crawlspace. He keeps 15 cows but has to go by boat to feed them at a site where they have high ground. "It’s too stressful for an old man. The water keeps going up and up," he said.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca