Winnipeggers continue to sandbag, clean up amid flooding

Vehicles across Winnipeg are stuck in floodwaters that have frozen over, and people are continuing to sandbag as parts of cityare seeing significant flooding afterweekend of rain on top of snow melt.

On the eastern edge of Winnipeg, in the south Transcona neighbourhood,Nanci Dagg is helping her son. Hiscrawl space is wet and the 100-year-old foundation is heaving even though they were sandbagging for weeks.

Outside, the storage shed is also wet, anditems that were earmarked for renovations are now garbage.

Looking across Dagg'sproperty, a nearbyfootbridgewas swept away by the flood and is now stuck in ice.

She says the main issue is the ditches in the area, including on Dugald and Symington roads, which flood every year.

"We've got picturesof kids with canoes going up and down [the ditches]. It's too cold to do it today, but it's never been this bad for this long," Dagg said.

The culverts freeze over, or are blocked by cattails and other debris, which means water flows onto surrounding properties.

Dagg says it seems to be a matter of the city reacting, rather than being proactive. She thinks if they cleared the ditches in the fall, and came out earlier to steam the culverts, flooding wouldn't be as big of a problem.

A little higher up on Goodyear Avenue, Myron Posiukwaded through water to check out the water levels.

Although his home is dry, his neighbours have flooding.

"The sump pump is running, but there's no seepage or anything, so we're okay there," he said.

"We're in the very, very lowest point going southeast from here. The farmers fields are higher. So you get that water draining off into our area."

Posiuk agrees the main problem stems from culverts being blocked, but thinks the city addressed a couple problem areas. He adds that the opening of the Red River floodway helped ease some of the pressure.

He plans to stay at home for a couple of days until his neighbourhood dries up.

"It's difficult. I just walked down the street to see what there is. Our two cars are not capable of going through that."

Weekend 311 calls

There were1,142 storm-related calls or emailsto the City of Winnipeg's 311 service through the weekend, city spokespersonDavid Driedgersaid.

Of those, 695 were about flooded streets or ditches,412 were aboutbasement floodingand35 were aboutrising water levels in retention ponds.

Driedger said crews addressed culvert issues in southTranscona on Monday.

Across the city in St. Vital, Pat Ryan is adding to her pile of sandbags to try to keep water from seeping from her yard into her basement.

"It's not too bad because I've kept up to it by scooping it and putting it down the drain, basically. But it's not wrecking anything. And I anticipated this was going to happen, so I had a lot of stuff taken up out of the basement to begin with," she said.

"We live in Manitoba. We're on a flood plain. So you have to expect this to happen once in a while."

Winnipeggers deal with significant flooding after weekend rain

2 years ago

Duration 2:06

Parts of Winnipeg are underwater and ice after the weekend rain. CBC's Emily Brass spoke with some Winnipeggers trying their best to keep that water from getting in their homes.