Flooding and ice north of Selkirk is dangerous

First thing this morning, I got a call about the very difficult situation north of Selkirk. I went out with Jack Jonasson to visit the area, and to meet with Duncan Allen.

Twice, last night the river surged, first about 9:00 p.m. and then about 10:00 p.m.. Then about 1:00 a.m., Duncan Allen went to check on the situation in front of his home. As he was walking across his yard toward the Red River, he suddenly realized the water was coming up around his boots. He turned to go back to his house, when suddenly a loud crashing and thundering sound started. He ran back to his home as the loud crashing and crunching continued. The ice was moving - and not only along the river, but huge slabs also came over the edge of the river toward his home. It was scary.

Today some of the big ice blocks can be seen as they spilled out of the river and up his lawn (top photo). Not far away, near Norm Smith's home, big ice blocks charged several hundred meters out of the river and onto a nearby road (middle photo). Though many ice blocks were half a meter thick, some (bottom photo), were monsters up to a meter thick.

People in this area of the Red River feel that they were forgotten by the NDP when the floodproofing was done. They watched the dykes go up around communities south of Winnipeg, but when residents from this area went to the Clean Environment Commission hearings (and other places) and said protection was needed north of Selkirk, they were not listened to. They should have been.

This area deserves to be well protected from ice-jams and from floods, just as well as Winnipeg and the region south of Winnipeg is protected. Full dyking must be done here, the channel needs to be dredged to allow more water to flow, and a hovercraft ice breaker (see my earlier post) as an improved method of protecting against ice-jams needs to be considered.

I should add that residents have much praise for the work of those in the local muncipality. They put in long hours and did everything they could.

Note added Sunday April 13:

This morning I talked with Joe Smolinski, who lives near Duncan Allen mentioned above. Joe had just built his home last year. He was told by provincial officials to build at a level which was guaranteed to protect him - two feet higher than floods had ever come before. But, he talked to local people like Norm Smith, and he built two feet higher than was recommended by the province. He is lucky he did, for even with the extra two feet his garage suffered flood damage. This is one of the reasons people in this area are upset. They feel they were lied to in the height they were told to build. And for those who think this is just new homes, the home where Duncan Allen lives was first built in about 1850. Homes have been in this area for more than a hundred and fifty years and have been safe this whole time, but clearly are not safe any more. That is why action is needed, and should have been provided to protect homes here just as it was for many other communities south of Winnipeg. And one more thing, Saturday night Joe and his wife found out just after midnight, that they were to be evacuated in ten minutes - from a home recently built - in an area the province had told them was safe, and even having built their home at a height much above what the province had recommended.

It is unacceptable that people north of Winnipeg are not protected. As the Winnipeg Free Press editorial comments today "The effectiveness of the Doer administration's $600 million-plus-project to widen the floodway to protect the city beyond the 100-year flood level has been reduced to a hope and a prayer, it seems. Ice buildup at the floodway mouth and downstream means that unprecedented levels of water are moving inexorably into some Winnipeg neighbourhoods and downstream, to riverside homes in the communities of St. Andrews, St. clements, Lockport and Selkirk. Ice-breaking machines have faltered in the face of mountains of massive ice chunks crunchning up against the bridge piers."

As I say above, we need a combination of dyking, dredging and a hovercraft ice breaker to deal more effectively with ice dams in order to prevent the sorts of problems we have seen this year.