More troops deployed to Manitoba flood

I'm not sure how many Canadians are here, but I've noticed that the Manitoba flood is getting worse... 1000 troops deployed in the worst flood in 300 years!
According to a CBC News report

Three hundred Alberta-based troops will be deployed into Manitoba's flood zone, joining 700 from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northwestern Ontario who are already battling floodwaters in the province. ...
"We have two major conflicts underway and now two major floods happening here in Canada," said MacKay.

Leave it to Defence Minister Peter MacKay to throw military conflicts into this disaster!

Manitoba Emergency Measures Minister said:

Ashton described the Assiniboine River flood of 2011 as a once-in-300-year event.

They are hoping to divert the river into a watershed may wind up flooding an area 200 km wide. They're waiting to see how much rain they get before making the decision to divert the river.

Farmers fear their livelihoods could be lost if the province deliberately breaches dikes meant to contain floodwaters in order to minimize damage to an even larger area should dikes fail.

Currently 3,700 people have been evacuated with 1,500 more on stand-by evacuation at the moment.

The flooding in the area has been ongoing, sandbags are running out and so in patience. The citizens of the area are trying to convince the government to divert the river further down stream where it would have less of an impact. Farmers are already thinking they're out of business for good.

"Let's just say we feel we've been blindsided and that there's a little bit of … a lot of sacrificing taking place right here."

The release of water is necessary to prevent potentially more catastrophic uncontrolled flooding over a wider 500 square kilometre area and 850 properties should dikes fail, Emergency Measures Minister Steve Ashton said

With the area being so wet, we can expect grain prices to go up as they may be able to plant 3% of their typical 40% of national totals.

Ohhh man,, and all that water is bound to make the northern US flooding worsen ?

reply to post by hbarker


To my simple geographic understanding, the Assiniboine flows to the Red River, (Red River of the North not to be confused with the one that feeds the Mississippi) they seem to flow north toward Hudson Bay, so no worries about adding this to the ever growing list of things to worry about.

I saw that on the news today, how bad it's gotten. A couple of the farmers interviewed said they're just going to apply for bankruptcy after this, because they'll have lost everything.

So far this year, it's still unbelievably wet, even in the areas that didn't flood. Last summer lasted a whole 2 months, half the prairies flooded, then froze and snowed. There's just no where for the water to go, the ground is so thoroughly saturated.

With the area being so wet, we can expect grain prices to go up as they may be able to plant 3% of their typical 40% of national totals.

I heard somewhere that we need a really good crop season this year, or the world's food supply is in trouble. So far, the season's late again, tractors can't even get near some of the fields. When you drive around the province (Saskatchewan), it looks like every farm has a private lake, until you see the fence posts sticking out.

Manitoba's aerial view looks like half the province is a lake.
www.theweathernetwork.com...

Ohhh man,, and all that water is bound to make the northern US flooding worsen ?

Probably. And then it'll flow south.
Hope for less snow next year....


***looked at post above, I think they're right, that it mostly flows north, not sure about the most northern part of the states though

Well, with the Mississippi flood on top of our Prairies, the dwindling grain stocks.. I agree, it does not bode well at all. I was a farmer for years, the job is tough enough when you don't have a good dry week in the spring, I understand that in the Prairies, if things don't dry out by about the 21st of May it'll be too late to plant.

I was just watching the news about the floods. To save 800 homes, they are likey - this morning - going to flood prime farmland with between 150 to 300 homes. The cost to Manitoba could be up to 100 million dollars in lost revenue, these farms provide seasonal work for about 300 people, and are very large vegetable and fruits farms.

The were showing some of these houses on the news, they're large beautiful homes, and this was NOT in a flood area. They're only going to be flooded because of diverting the rivers to save the homes in the towns.

A good supply of Canada's local vegetables will probably be gone.

Plant extra in the garden this year, or containers and high spots like last year, if the land is still too wet, like last year.

Saskatchewan has a lot of grain farming, but here it is, almost the middle of May, and it's still cold and wet.