Residents mop up as water from heavy downpour recedes in southeastern Manitoba

Posted on September 18, 2024 by Peggy

Wayne Prette’s house in Kleefeld was surrounded by a swamp of rainwater on Wednesday that was slowly receding, a day after being hit by a massive downpour hit southeastern Manitoba.

Thunderstorms rolled into the province Monday and into Tuesday in what an Environment Canada meteorologist described as the type of rainfall that would only be expected once every 120 to 130 years.

Steinbach — just east of Prette’s Kleefeld home — got about 156 millimetres of rain in a 36-hour period, Environment Canada said Tuesday afternoon. St-Pierre-Jolys, to the south, has 167 millimetres.

Prette said water started building swiftly around his house on Tuesday morning, first pooling in his orchard and then flooding the crawl space underneath his house, reaching a height of three and a half feet.

Now that it’s stopped, all he can do is wait for the water around his house to recede.

“It’s draining, but slow, and I’m worried about all the wetness in my house,” he said, adding if the water swells high enough to reach his house’s joists, he would be forced out.

A house surrounded by water — Prette said the water around his house has been draining slowly. (Gary Solilak/CBC)

Wes Fehr, the manager of works and operations with the rural municipality of Hanover, which includes Kleefeld, said parts of the RM saw up to 200 millimetres of rain over the last two days.

Officials are still dealing with road washouts, with stretches of nearly 50 roads still submerged as of Wednesday, he said.

The RM has also had hundreds of calls from residents related to flooding, with the majority of flooded basements concentrated in the communities of Kleefeld and Mitchell, he said.

Valerie Rozehnal, who lives in Mitchell, was still trying to get the water out of her basement Wednesday, trying to dry out wet books, boxes and furniture.

A woman on a red jacket is on a basement. — Valerie Rozehnal was trying to dry out her house’s basement after Tuesday’s flooding. (Gary Solilak/CBC)

“Pretty much everyone here was impacted in some way,” Rozehnal said, referring to the neighbours on her street.

“With climate change, we know that this is probably going to happen again, so we are trying to be proactive and preventative.”

She hopes the municipality will follow suit on prevention, checking drainage systems so the water doesn’t back up.

Thunderstorm watches, warnings issued

Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk told CBC’s Radio Noon Wednesday that pooled water in the city has started to drain, after some streets in the city were flooded on Tuesday.

The heavy downpour started Monday night, but the overland flooding didn’t begin until Tuesday morning, he said.

“With the saturated ground conditions and the fact that many of our drains have still been full … that’s where some of our problems came in,” he said.

The city’s pumps and sewer backup systems have struggled in the city’s north to cope with the heavy rain, Funk said, running at capacity during at points.

A field covered in water after a flooding. — RM of Hanover manager of works and operations Wes Fehr said parts of the rural municipality got as much as 200 millimetres of rain this week. (Gary Solilak/CBC)

While it will take the city days to determine how many houses and properties were flooded, he said 16 washouts were reported on some of the city’s gravel roadways.

Funk said he’s not sure if the province will declare the flooding a natural disaster at this time.

“It is such a wide, wide swath that this path that this rain took.… There are so many communities that have been affected,” he said.

But he said he wants to “get the ball rolling” by asking residents impacted by flooding to apply for the province’s disaster financial assistance program.

A spokesperson for the province told CBC News that the Emergency Measures Organization has been working with a number of communities as they respond to the flooding.

However, the spokesperson said the province has not received requests for its disaster financial assistanceprogram from residents or communities by Wednesday.

A pond is outside a group of houses. — Streets and basements were flooded in southeastern Manitoba, including in the rural municipality of Hanover. (Gary Solilak/CBC)

There may also be bad news in the forecast — on Wednesday night, Environment Canada issued severe thunderstorm watches or warnings for virtually all of southern Manitoba, including the Steinbach area.

“I am very concerned,” Funk said. While water levels were coming down, “if we get another three-inch downpour [in] an hour and a half, who’s got capacity for that?”

Hanover’s Fehr also said the RM needs a good 24 hours without rain “to actually get the water outside of the towns.”