Sandbags on the way to 41 Winnipeg properties as water rises

The City of Winnipeg hopes 41 property owners will have their dikes up by the end of this coming weekend and wants them built with physical distancing health measures in use.

A crest at the city's monitoring gauge at James Avenue is due between April 12 and 17, according to the latest provincial flood forecast.

The most recent assessment has dropped the risk of flooding slightly.

• Manitoba forecast eases fears of major flooding during COVID-19 pandemic
• From pandemic to flood: Manitoba communities trying to figure out how to sandbag, observe social distancing

The cityis delivering sandbags to 41 properties, and another 16 properties remain at risk of river flooding and may require dikes.

"These are our homeowners... that understand that their property is on the river, and they understand that they are in a flood plain and almost yearly are required to build a sandbag dike. These homeowners are experienced in doing so,"said assistant chiefJason Shaw, the city'semergency operations manager.

The COVID-19 health emergency has placed an extra burden on those property owners when asking for volunteers and building the sandbag dikes: the requirement to stay two metres away from anyone not in their household.

"We are going to try and assist the homeowners with using social distancing with good information so that they can reach out to their volunteers and make sure that they're doing their best," Shaw told reporters on a briefing call Monday.

The province of Manitoba published guidelines for building dikes and observing physical distance rules.

https://www.gov.mb.ca/emo/pdfs/adaptations-to-high-water-response-activity.pdf

Shaw says some common sense rules apply to building the dikes and following health rules; don't show up to help if you feel sick, wear gloves, wash your hands often and follow the rules set out by the province.

Shaw says the city has made approximately 200,000 sandbags in preparation for this year's flood.

"We won't require that many for what were the predicted river levels, but we always like to be prepared we are well stocked," Shaw said.

Shaw says the city will step up withextra assistance if a property owner has trouble getting volunteers or getting a dike up before the crest.

"It is still the responsibility of the homeowner to secure volunteers and to build their own dike but, we're thereto backup our residents and help, for sure," Shaw said.