Manitoba flooding update
Posted May 13, 2011 8:43 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger took to the airwaves on Friday to explain his plan to deliberately flood a rural area south of Portage La Prairie.
In a televised supper-hour address, Selinger says it was not an easy decision, but one that will prevent a “catastrophic” natural flood that would affect many more people.
Saturday morning, crews will punch a hole in a dike and start to slowly release water from the swollen Assiniboine River.
The water will flow over farmland, spreading slowly over a vast area that includes 150 homes, until it reaches other, less-swollen rivers.
Hundreds of army personnel have been helping people in the area sandbag their homes this week.
Selinger also reiterated a promise to compensate people for damages, lost income and the cost of recovering the land.
Selinger called this year’s flooding a “natural disaster without precedent.”
Further west, some 13-hundred people remain evacuated from low-lying neighbourhoods in Brandon, and officials say it could be weeks before they are allowed to return home.
