Southeastern Manitobans wade through flooded streets, basements after massive downpour

Posted on September 17, 2024 by Peggy

People in parts of southeastern Manitoba are dealing with overland flooding after heavy rain swamped the region Monday into Tuesday.

Stephen Berg, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said a slew of thunderstorms started rolling into southeastern Monday morning, bringing heavy rainfall and a tornado warning for the region on Monday afternoon.

Elma, a community in the Whiteshell area in eastern Manitoba, got the highest amount of rain in the province, with 205 millimetres recorded over a 36-hour period, Berg said Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Environment Canada said the city of Steinbach had 156 millimetres of rain between Monday and Tuesday, leading to overland flooding and some road closures.

Massive rainfall floods Steinbach streets

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Commuters and residents brave flooded roads near the intersection of Main Street and Highway 12 in Steinbach on Tuesday. Lois Janz shot this video while running errands around midday and says there was a ‘community feel’ as people helped push each other’s stuck cars out of deep water.

Heavy rains also hit some communities further west, with Winkler getting 133 millimetres, according to Environment Canada.

“This is quite an event,” said Berg. “You’d expect an event like this one once every 120 years, 130 years or more.”

Animal shelter floods week after opening

An animal shelter that recently opened its doors in Steinbach was among the buildings that had basement flooding on Tuesday.

“The ribbon cutting was last week … something we’ve worked towards for years,” Sandra Watson, a volunteer adoption co-ordinator at the shelter, told CBC News on Tuesday.

“It is a big blow.”

Water started pooling in a ditch in front of the shelter on Tuesday morning, but with no immediate indication of flooding risk, Watson said the shelter kept running as normal.

But by noon, the water started flooding the shelter’s backyard, and soon after, the building had become an island surrounded by rainwater, she said.

Woman looks at the camera with a smile, behind her a building is surrounded by water after overland flooding. — Sandra Watson, a volunteer adoption co-ordinator at the Steinbach and Area Animal Rescue, said the shelter’s basement was flooded just a week after the building opened to the public. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)

As the water started pouring through windows into the shelter’s basement, volunteers worked to move animal food and supplies into a storage room.

“But it [the water] was coming in fast, and we eventually had to just stop once it became waist-high,” she said. “It was unsafe for our volunteers.”

Watson said no animals were injured during the flooding, and the shelter is in the process of relocating them to foster families or other animal hospitals while the water is pumped out.

Nikita Pandya, a Steinbach resident, said she spent three or four hours draining her house’s basement after it flooded on Tuesday.

Car are surrounded by water in a flooded street. — Some roads in Steinbach were still flooded on Tuesday. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)

The water, gushing from drains and through the house’s garage, quickly flooded the basement, eventually reaching knee-high.

“Everything is mashed up downstairs,” she said. “We just set up last week, and it’s all messed up.”

Pandya said her basement wasn’t the only one dealing with the issue on her street, with at least two neighbours also experiencing flooding.

Flooded streets, basements in Hanover

In the rural municipality of Hanover, some roads were closed Tuesday due to washouts, an update on the RM’s website said.

Reeve Jim Funk said the RM got multiple reports of basement flooding on Tuesday due to heavy rainfall.

One resident reported walking through nearly waist-high water on a road in the community of Kleefeld, he told CBC Tuesday afternoon.

Funk said the RM is using pumping water from ditches and storm sewers to mitigate the impact of flooding.

The rural municipality is also offering sandbags for residents facing the threat of flooding throughout the afternoon, adding reports of flooded farmland and drainage ditches running full are not considered emergencies at this time.

Berg said more rain is expected for southeastern Manitoba this week, with the risk of more thunderstorms Wednesday.

Canoeing through flooded southern Manitoba community

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Southern Manitoba communities like Mitchell were flooded Tuesday after heavy rainfall. Shelley Gross shot this video from a canoe in the area around Reichenbach Road in Mitchell, a community west of Steinbach.