Flood costs skyrocketing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/06/2011 (5577 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The cost of damages from this year’s Manitoba flood is rising daily and could top the $280 million incurred during 1997’s Flood of the Century.

“We don’t have a handle on the full cost yet. We won’t for some time because a lot of the damage really remains to be seen,” Emergency Measures Minister Steve Ashton said in an interview Monday afternoon.

He said the cost to date is likely “beyond $200 million,” although he lumps some springtime flood-proofing in that figure.

In answer to a question in the legislature on Monday, Ashton said the damage toll “could approach and even exceed what we saw in 1997.”

The 1997 flood was concentrated in the Red River Valley. This year’s flood is all over the provincial map, from the valley to the province’s southwest corner and especially in communities hugging a swollen Lake Manitoba.

The costs incurred so far also include damages to property in Brandon and near the cut in the Assiniboine River dike at the now-famous Hoop and Holler bend just east of Portage la Prairie.

On Monday, the province said its initial estimate of flood-caused road damages stands at $40 million.

In late May, the Selinger government announced a $175 million flood compensation and flood-proofing program for communities along the Assiniboine River and Lake Manitoba. That’s before it agreed to entertain buying out some flooded out property owners along Lake Manitoba.

In 1997, $230 million was paid under one program alone — Disaster Financial Assistance, which was 90 per cent covered by the federal government. This year’s DFA bill could be comparable, Ashton said.

Not included in Ashton’s flood cost estimates are losses from millions of acres of Manitoba cropland going unseeded this spring due to excess moisture. One estimate last week put the total as high as five million acres — a record. Many livestock producers have also lost valuable hay and pasture land and shipped cattle off their farms because they couldn’t feed them.

And the costs won’t end there.

The province is already looking at permanent flood mitigation work along the Assiniboine River as well as in hard-hit lake communities.

Following the 1997 flood, the federal and provincial governments spent $650 million expanding the Red River Floodway and $140 million on community ring dikes along the Red River. The investment in flood-proofing over the past 14 years in Manitoba tops $1 billion.

Meanwhile, Ashton spent Monday morning in the RM of St. Laurent, where he toured flood-ravaged homes and cottages.

He said he was struck by the devastation and the community’s courageous flood fight effort.

“Forty per cent of the people in that room (reeve, council and municipal staff) are also evacuated,” Ashton said of the folks he met with. “They are flood victims and they’re fighting the flood.”

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

Portage Diversion should do the job, second Hoop and Holler cut unlikely

The province now believes that the Assiniboine River and Portage Diversion channel can accommodate the runoff from the most recent rainstorms. That means a second cut at Hoop and Holler bend is likely unnecessary.

A bridge spanning the Souris River near Wawanesa was washed out over the weekend. A government bridge inspector was inspecting the bridge at the time, but he was able to reach shore safely and was back at work on Monday.

More than 100 evacuation notices were issued Monday for property owners at Lundar Beach and Sugar Point on Lake Manitoba.

Some 350 homeowners and cottage owners have been provided temporary access to the mandatory evacuation zone at Twin Lakes Beaches.

So far, the government has received 502 applications for compensation from Hoop and Holler bend residents. It’s paid $242,000 in advances. Some 342 Lake Manitoba area farmers have applied for compensation as well. They’ve received $180,000 so far.