Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2010 (4607 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Officials in Gimli said today damaged caused by Wednesday’s unprecedented flooding in the Lake Winnipeg community requires it to be declared a disaster area.

The designation will speed up provincial funding for clean up and additional diking.

“The lake was basically a lake on steroids,” the RM’s emergency coordinator said Thursday morning. “It blew up.”

High winds and high water levels on the lake mixed together to flood several homes, cottages and roads from Riverton to Winnipeg Beach.

The lake rose more than four feet in a short period of time as water from the north basin blew into the south basin.

“Everybody got nailed with the same thing,” Don Emes said.

RM of Gimli Mayor Lynn Greenberg said crews have been working around the clock to pump out flooded areas.

“Later today we might start to see the lake take some water back,” Emes said.

Gimli MLA Peter Bjornson and Water Stewardship Christine Melnick are currently touring the area.

Melnick said the storm, a “weather bomb”, should not be written off as a one-off event.

“This is the new normal,” she said.

Immediate plans call for repairing and even raising dikes built in 2005.