More than 40 people north of Winnipeg were rescued overnight by boats and amphibious vehicles and dozens of homes were damaged — some moved off their foundations by massive blocks of ice.

And south of the Manitoba capital on Sunday, 55 residents of the town of Riverside received a voluntary evacuation advisory as overland flooding left the community cut off by road.

To the north, residents at Breezy Point and the community of St. Clements were under an evacuation advisory as of Friday when massive ice jams on the swollen river created a backflow and overland flooding. But not everyone chose to leave.

Overnight into Sunday morning, floodwaters rose dramatically and a number of residents on both sides of the Red were stranded.

Don Forfar, the reeve of St. Andrews, said some had to be rescued from the roofs of their homes. “There’s entire homes that have been bashed and removed by ice,” he said.

Don Brennan, Manitoba’s director of emergency measures, said no one was injured but the rescue was dangerous. The bloated Red River is running at about twice its normal speed this time of year at more than 80,000 cubic feet per second.

“We could have easily lost rescuers today. The conditions were very dangerous with the water and ice that was moving very fast around that community.”

‘A big puddle of water’

Devon Gray and his family were among those who had a rude awakening in St. Clements.

“We were sleeping,” he said. “We could hear the trucks idling on the road here. I look out the window and see a big puddle of water.

“The road was covered. I could see my neighbour’s house. I could just barely see their windows.”

Gray said he was lucky the rising water didn’t reach his home. But many others in the area weren’t so fortunate.

Steve Strang, the local mayor, said at least 20 to 25 homes were washed out overnight. Some roads Sunday remained under a metre of water or more — although the most dangerous ice appeared to be moving freely downstream by midday.

“I think this is going to be one to remember,” Strang said. “I mean, we all talked about the flood of ‘97… because of the way the water came. We are not going to talk about that anymore. We are going to talk about 2009.”

“What do you say to somebody who’s just had their house washed out?” Strang added. “I don’t have words for these people. I think as a municipality, we’ve done everything we possibly could to address this.”

Across the Red River at Breezy Point, 40 houses received evacuation orders late Saturday after being put under a voluntary evacuation advisory Friday. Nine stragglers were rescued early Sunday.

People evacuated from homes in St. Andrews were taken to the community hall in the village of Clandeboye. Some of those evacuated from St. Clements were taken to the South Beach Casino at the Brokenhead First Nation.

Officials are asking people to stay away from flood-affected areas so they don’t impede emergency vehicles.

Community devastated

Strang told CBC News the community is absolutely devastated and the degree of flooding is unprecedented. He said emergency crews were working early Sunday to rescue the last few people from their homes.

Almost all the homes in the affected area of St. Peters Road and Peltz Drive took water.

“Some of the people were actually standing on their furniture on the main floor of the homes waiting for rescuers,” the CBC’s Aarti Pole said, reporting from the scene.

Strang said at one point emergency crews were trapped by the quickly rising waters.

He said emergency officials will continue to check homes looking for people they may have missed. “I mean we’ve done everything possible we could have done to address this, but when Mother Nature decides to put her fury against you … there’s no stopping her.”

On Saturday, Selkirk Mayor David Bell described the ice as being two storeys high and so powerful that it ripped out 70-year-old trees, fences and railway ties.

The ice blocks moved through Winnipeg a day earlier, sparing the city from flooding.

Unprecedented ice jams

Some residents in St. Andrews and St. Clements blamed the unprecedented ice jams and additional flows from the Red River floodway for the overland flooding. The floodway protects Winnipeg by diverting water from the Red around the city.

The floodway empties back into the Red River just south of those communities as the river flows north into Lake Winnipeg.

The Manitoba government deployed Amphibex ice-breakers on the Red north of Winnipeg weeks ago. They were redeployed south of Winnipeg last week as river levels threatened the capital but returned — some say too late — to the north of the city in the past couple of days.

Brennan said the flooding was caused by ice jams.

“What made it dicey there is there was a lot of ice and water surrounding the community, so it was hard for the boats to manoeuvre, but every residence has been checked now.”

He said 27 homes on St. Peters and Peltz Road in St. Clements were evacuated due to breeched dikes.

And on the other side of the river in St. Andrews at Breezy Point, “Those folks had been given an evacuation notice on Friday and some chose to ignore it — so the first responders had to go in via boat and take them out this morning.”

The Canadian Press

Hundred of volunteer sand-baggers turned out Sunday to help protect property along the river north of Winnipeg, where ice jams are causing concern. The jams act like dams, clogging the river and causing the water to back up, spilling over the banks.

Paul Guyader, emergency co-ordinator for the rural municipalities of West St. Paul and St. Andrews, is pleading for volunteers to fill sandbags, help build dikes, and direct trucks carrying sandbag loads.

Approximately 25 homes have been flooded in those areas because of the river itself or surface water unable to drain through frozen culverts. Another 12 homes have been flooded in the RM of St. Clements, while City of Winnipeg officials estimate there could be about 80 properties at risk within the city limits.

Affected homeowners have been advised to make their sandbag dikes higher.

Usually, most properties in Winnipeg and the rural municipalities are protected from rising river levels by the floodway, which redirects the water through a 48-kilometer channel between St. Norbert and Lockport.

It can’t do anything, though, when ice is causing sections of river inside those protected areas to rise so quickly.

Consequently, everyone who lives along the riverbanks is advised to secure any structures such as docks, sheds, and recreational equipment.

A main problem area in Winnipeg continues to be at the La Salle Hotel on Nairn Avenue, where hundred of sandbags have been piled to try to protect the building.

Currently, the Red River is 16.7 feet above normal winter ice conditions and forecasters say a peak of 20.5 feet could occur in the city by next Friday if the Red River Floodway is not in operation.

No relief from the floodway yet

Conceived and constructed in the 1960s by the government of Duff Roblin to prevent a recurrence of the devastating 1950 flood, the floodway has been credited by provincial authorities with saving Winnipeg 20 times between 1968 and 1999.

However, it can’t provide any relief from the rising Red just yet. The gates can’t be opened until the jams and large pans of ice have flowed further north from the gates.

“If we operate now, we can get ice jamming going into the floodway, jamming up against the St. Mary’s bridge,” said Manitoba Water Stewardship spokesman Steve Topping. “As such, the floodway capacity would be reduced and would cause higher water levels in the city of Winnipeg.”

The unseasonably colder weather that moved into the province March 26 has further solidified the ice jams, say officials. That means the large one near Lockport and the floodway gates did not move over the weekend.

‘It is sort of buying us some time, because at the next point north, we have another ice jam by Mapleton, and then we have solid ice right up to the mouth of the river.’— Paul Guyader

However, the cold has provided respite in other ways. It has slowed the flow of the Red River, which has not been backing up as quickly as it had been during the middle of last week, when flash flooding over the banks prompted several communities north of Winnipeg to declare states of emergencies.

Guyader says the fact the ice jam is not moving now may prevent future ice jams down the river.

“It is sort of buying us some time, because at the next point north, we have another ice jam by Mapleton, and then we have solid ice right up to the mouth of the river,” he said.

The Red River, which flows north from the United States into Manitoba, empties into Lake Winnipeg.

“We still have our Amphibex working at Selkirk north of Sugar Island, breaking ice. The more we can get broke before that stuff moves, the better chance we can move the whole works right up to the lake,” said Guyader.

The Amphibex Excavator is best described as a floating backhoe that can break up solid ice and ice jams. The province has two of them that have been working nearly non-stop for the past week.

Triple-whammy could impact flood levels

If the ice jams don’t begin to budge anytime soon, there could be a triple-whammy of flooding on the way, say officials.

Once the warmer start thawing the thinner ice that has slowed the river flow, the water is going to back up quickly against the ice jams. As well, frozen drains and culverts are going to prevent surface water from leaving.

Last week, the city received about 15 centimetres of fresh snow, and flurries are also being forecast for the middle of this week.

‘We’ve got two or three more weeks of this and I know we need to take better care.’—Steve Strang

Those issues will be exacerbated if they are not resolved before the arrival of the Red River crest, which is making its way north from the Dakotas. It is anticipated to crest in Winnipeg around April 12.

With all of that in mind, Guyader says sand-baggers are needed to build dikes for as many riverfront properties as possible. And there is no better time than right now, while the situation is in a holding pattern, he said.

Reinforcements are also needed to give the current volunteers a breather. The mad-scramble effort to sling sandbags is beginning to take a toll on volunteers and public works crews, said St. Clements Mayor Steve Strang.

“We’ve got two or three more weeks of this and I know we need to take better care,” he said. “But I think that if we can get through this hurdle and have enough sandbags and things ready, the municipalities and the province can deal with the rest.”

Volunteers and food needed

Volunteers who want to aid the effort north of Winnipeg are asked to drive to the parking lot in Lower Fort Garry, where shuttle buses will transport them to the sites.

Guyader is also seeking donations of food for the volunteer troops. Anyone generous enough to provide food is asked to call 204-481-0739 so the delivery can be coordinated to various areas.

Volunteers can also call the same number to find out where they are needed most. People who need sandbags are asked to call 204-492-8689.

Portage Diversion taking off some pressure

Manitoba’s water stewardship minister says the provincial government has begun diverting water from the Assiniboine River into the Portage Diversion.

The Portage Diversion redirects some of the flow of water in the Assiniboine to a 29-kilometer long diversion channel that empties into Lake Manitoba.

Christine Melnick, the provincial minister of water stewardship, said that will help water to flow better and takes some pressure off the Red River.

The diversion is handling one thousand cubic-feet-per-second of water from the Assiniboine.

Roseau River F.N. nearly empty

Nearly every home in Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation has been evacuated.

There are about 800 people who live in the community at the junction of the Roseau and Red rivers, just north of Emerson, Manitoba’s border town with the United States. As of Monday, only 96 people remained.

This article was originally posted by CBC News - March 30, 2009

Smoke billows from the Duff Roblin building at U of M March 28. (Joshua Adria/CBC)

There were no injuries but parts of the campus were evacuated as firefighters and hazardous materials personnel worried about toxic fumes from more than 250 chemicals stored in the building.

The fire was reported just after 12 p.m. Saturday at the building on Dysart Road which houses the psychology department and zoology laboratories.

Smoke could be seen billowing into the sky from two blocks away.

Students, staff and visitors were allowed back on campus later in the day. Officials had no immediate word on the cause of the blaze which took about two hours to extinguish. The building has been closed indefinitely.