It’s a water war

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This article was published 03/07/2011 (5206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SOURIS, Man. – Ottawa has deployed some 200 troops to help with flood-control measures in southwestern Manitoba, where volunteers are racing to raise dikes before the Souris River crests over the coming days.

The forces were sent to the town of Souris, some 250 kilometres west of Winnipeg, to help with flood relief.

About 190 people in the community have been evacuated as a precaution, and emergency services at the hospital have been suspended, according to the town’s website.

The troops’ deployment is welcome news for volunteers like Laura Williams, 19, who’s been putting in long days loading sandbags onto pallets so they can be trucked to other volunteers at the dikes.

Williams, a student at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton who is home in Souris for the summer, is a member of her school’s hockey team but says even she is feeling the strain.

She’s been hauling sandbags, one at a time, since Tuesday.

“I’m exhausted. It’s pretty hot out here, too, so that doesn’t help. We’re all pretty tired but we’re just going to keep going,” she said.

“It’s got to be done.”

With the Souris River expected to crest on Tuesday, soldiers will be placing sandbags to reinforce the dike over affected areas.

“People in the community have been doing their best, and we need to be sure we do all we can to prepare,” Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger said Saturday in a news release.

“The town of Souris asked the provincial government for additional resources and, given the short time frame and the need to quickly mobilize resources, I authorized the request to the Department of National Defence for military support.”

The military effort will be co-ordinated by a task force based in Edmonton as troops work with regional authorities to contain and control the flooding.

The camouflage-clad troops were already working on dikes early Saturday afternoon.

Souris Mayor Darryl Jackson said the river level appeared to climb a foot overnight Friday, and he expects it to rise by six or seven more by Monday. By that estimation, water will be dangerously close to the Highway 22 traffic bridge that crosses the Souris River in town.

Jackson says if the water comes over the bridge, Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation must keep it closed. That makes for some tough decisions in Souris, where the fire hall sits on one side of the bridge and the hospital and care home sit on the other.

“So, in that case, we have two separate towns divided by the river,” Jackson said.

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Jackson added ambulances and fire trucks are distributed evenly on both sides of the water, so that they can act as mobile units in case of emergency on either side.

For Souris, it’s the third crest this year, and Steve Ashton, the province’s emergency measures minister, said the river will be at “unprecedented” levels.

“Anybody I’ve talked to from the area has been saying this is absolutely unbelievable, that’s the only way to describe it,” he said.

The surge on the river began when a rainstorm last month in Saskatchewan filled reservoirs to their capacity, forcing officials in that province to release the extra water through dams.

– The Canadian Press, with files from the Brandon Sun