Flood-weary Peguis leaders call for military help amid warnings of potentially catastrophic spring melt

The chief and council of Peguis First Nation are pleading for help from Canada’s military as the threat of a once-in-200-year flood grows larger by the day.

Chief Stan Bird said the province’s flood forecasters have gone from saying the risk of a significant flood on the Fisher River was “moderate” on March 4 to warning on April 6 that water levels could reach the largest flood on record, which inundated the community in 2022.

Peguis First Nation is located about 180 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

“There is an urgent need to mobilize the Canadian Armed Forces to Peguis First Nation,” Bird said at a news conference Thursday.

“The 2022 flood was catastrophic,” he said. “It caused severe and widespread damage to our community. While we have made significant strides in rebuilding and repairing existing infrastructure, many of our members are still evacuated and waiting to return home.

“(Now) much of the progress we have made to rebuild will once again be destroyed… I urge all levels of government to sit up and take notice of the toll this is taking on the lives of our people, and for the Canadian Armed Forces to respond immediately.”

Premier Wab Kinew said during a radio interview earlier in the day that he had put in a request for the Canadian military to help Peguis deal with the expected flood.

By the afternoon, Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor said the federal government was going to send Team Rubicon, a non-profit aid organization made up of military veterans and former emergency service personnel and first responders.

“They have experience in other significant disasters in the country,” she said.

Naylor said there has been some discussion between the province and Peguis about building a permanent flood solution, with the premier seeming to be “very open to the possibility of having a diversion,” but those talks will have to be put on hold for the time being.

“Our focus is responding to the emergency that’s going on,” she said.

“Our hearts go out to everyone impacted. We do want folks to know that the government is working tirelessly to help those who need it.”

Naylor said the forecast worsened over the last month because of more snowstorms combined with snow that hadn’t melted yet.

Peguis has experienced flooding about once in every three or four years, on average, since 2000.

A flood in 2009 forced the evacuation of 3,000 people and caused $40 million in damage. Floodwaters the following year damaged 300 more homes and led to another evacuation.

After 2022’s disaster, Peguis launched a $1-billion lawsuit against the federal and provincial governments, as well as two rural municipalities. At that time, more than 500 community members were still displaced from that flood, as well as another 235 people from floods in 2014 and 2017.

The cost of repairing, replacing or moving the 500 homes affected by the 2022 flood alone was estimated to be more than $275 million.

Last year, Peguis invited Bob Rae, then Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, to see buildings damaged by flooding and further destruction from spring wildfires.

“There has been a lot of flooding in the past 20 years,” Rae said at the time. “It keeps happening consistently, so they are looking for some longer-term solutions.”

Rae promised the community he would report what he saw to both the federal and provincial governments.

“I think we’re going to just try to see if we can find some solutions that point the way to where things should go,” he said.

Bird noted Thursday that the province is aware that colder spring conditions, along with Wednesday’s snowstorm, which dumped more than 20 centimetres on the community, could lead to a rapid melt when the temperature rises.

“We are situated in the lowest lying part of Manitoba, which is essentially a basin,” he said. “Peguis always needs to prepare for a major flood.

“The flood forecasters and government decision-makers were ignoring this risk, a risk that we were quite aware of. Now that there is consensus on the risk of severe flooding, Peguis is left with little time to safeguard the community.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca