Water, fears rising in Brandon

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This article was published 08/05/2011 (5499 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the Assiniboine River climbed even higher Saturday, Harvey and Fay Bullee weren’t about to take any chances.

The Brandon residents called in family and friends, loaded up their possessions and prepared to head to their son’s cottage in Clear Lake. Brandon residents haven’t been ordered to evacuate yet, but the Bullees weren’t waiting around.

“You know there’s a seven-foot wall of water over there — it’s scary,” said Fay, whose home is close to the seeping super-sandbag dike at 18th Street North. “I just don’t want to see everything gone.”

A faulty water measurement gauge in Saskatchewan and more rain in the next few days have put 800 Brandon homeowners on the front lines in the province’s flood fight.

Steve Ashton, minister responsible for emergency measures, said that combination is forcing provincial crews to add a third layer of super-size sandbags along 18th Street and another layer along First Street in Brandon as well as additional protection along PTH 101, to hold back the rising Assiniboine.

Ashton said the province’s second-largest city is also raising its earthen dike protection to hold back more water than they’ve ever had to hold back before.

“The anticipated storm will bring 20 to 60 millimetres of rain to southern Manitoba,” he said during a teleconference. “This will provide challenges, both on the crest of river levels, but also local flows.”

The province said the Assiniboine in Brandon rose more than a foot on Friday and Saturday, bringing it to 1,181.33 feet — higher than the record level of 1,180 feet set in 1923.

Steve Topping, Manitoba Water Stewardships’s executive director, said the province has revised the peak amount of water expected to flow through Brandon between May 12 and 14 to 33,500 cubic feet per second as opposed to the already revised figure of 32,000 cfs forecast on Friday.

Topping said the unstable weather system predicted to bring rain will affect the Interlake area, but also the Assiniboine, Dauphin, Souris and Red River basins.

Ashton said the 800 homeowners who are in the affected area of Brandon have been cautioned by the community to move irreplaceable items out of their basements.

He said at least three homes in the Kirkcaldy Heights area of Brandon already have flooded basements because of water backing up through a culvert. City crews have sandbagged the culvert and the water has stopped flowing.

West of Brandon, in the RM of Whitehead, Dawn Winters and a large crew of volunteers were frantically working to save her house and keep the rising Assiniboine at bay.

Water rose to a first layer of a sandbag dike within less than 16 feet of her house — with no end in sight.

“It came up from the treeline (more than 325 feet away from the house) to half way up our yard overnight,” Winters said. “I’ve been here for 30 years and it’s never been in my yard before.”

But Winters had a lot of help, including a crew from the Deerboine Hutterite Colony.

“We had people who were on the highway and stopped to help us,” Winters said.

Mel Hofer, manager of the Deerboine colony, said flood water has started to impact his community, located along the Assiniboine north of Alexander. Yet a crew of as many as 50 people was on hand to help.

“I was very surprised how fast it came up,” Hofer said in between loads of sandbags. “Even overnight, it came up a foot, just like a bang.”

— staff / Brandon Sun