Smart weapon joins anti-flood arsenal

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/03/2009 (6368 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a city of sandbags, there’s a new water blocker on the block.

Tube dikes, which are pumped full of floodwater to act as a temporary berm, are protecting homes along the banks of the Red River in West St. Paul and across the river in East St. Paul.

"When the flood forecasts come in, we can put them up as quick as possible," West St. Paul Mayor Cliff Dearman said. "We’ve got the flooding from ice jamming and flooding from the States coming. We’re on high alert — super-high alert."

Clogged culverts and unpredictable ice jams on the Red River make it tough to pinpoint where flooding will occur, said Dearman, but the community is among those preparing with tube dikes. The 18-inch high tubes are stackable.

It can take three to four days to build a sandbag dike compared to half a day to fill a tube dike the equivalent size, said Dearman.

"We have lots — enough to take care of our municipality," said Dearman. "We put them down in worst spots."

Dan Garcea, who works at S and J Construction in West St. Paul, tipped the RM off about the tube-dike demo.

"Environmentally, they’re much better," said Garcea. "There’s always a question of what do you do with the sandbags after," he said. "The tubes have a 17-year shelf-life, while a sandbag is a couple of years."

He said the tubes come in 50-foot lengths and cost about $1,600 or roughly $32 a foot. When the flood threat ends, the tubes are drained, rolled up and put away for next time.

For a permanent berm, the construction company that employs Garcea will fill the Tiger Dam tubes with a concrete slurry, he said. Once filled, the tubes can be covered with earth to make a lasting dike, he said.

Today, the distributor of the Vancouver-made tube dikes has a truckload arriving in Winnipeg.

"We’re bringing 140 bags — about a mile and a half of diking," said Martin Bunting, spokesman for Canada Flood Control in Calgary. The distributor plans to deliver another 500 units to Manitoba as soon as the product is available, he said.

The provincial government said it is providing municipalities with more than 2,500 metres of the water barrier.

For information on the tube dike system, call the distributor at 1-866-852-1118

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

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Sightseers warned

Lookie-loos stay away.

That’s the word from politicians and the RCMP who are fed up with disaster tourists skirting road barriers and driving through flood-prone areas north of Winnipeg.

St. Andrews Reeve Don Forfar said he’s worried volunteers, sandbag trucks, plows and even emergency vehicles will be stalled by voyeurs driving through to take a gander at the ice jam.

And Friday the RCMP issued a pointed reminder that failure to obey barricades might result in charges under the Highway Traffic Act.

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.