The small Manitoba towns of Elie, Fairford, Newton and St. Francois Xavier are bracing themselves for the artificial flooding by Assiniboine River waters scheduled for today.
But as they fear for their homes, shops, vegetable farm and ranches, their hopes and dreams, there’s one bright spot. People are coming together to help. In Newton, seven kilometers from the Hoop and Holler Bend, where the Assiniboine dike is expected to be breached, Michelle Dunbar, was deeply touched when 50 people braved rain and high winds to sandbag the home her late husband built for her. A truck brought the sandbags from a town two and half hours away. “The community has been wonderful, ” Dunbar told CBC News. She is a widow raising a nine-year-old granddaughter on her own.
Teenage volunteers have spent hours filling sandbags in the target areas. Volunteers included Inmates from a Portage La Prairie youth detention centre who came out in full force to help save the estimated 150 homes that will be affected by the 225-square-kilometre flooding area.
But it’s one thing to sandbag houses and another to evacuate living animals. Fighting back tears, Steep Rock cattle rancher Arvid Nottveit told CBC news yesterday: “If I can’t evacuate my cattle within 24 hours, I will have to euthanize some of my herd.”
Dennis Sinclair of the Pinaymootang First Nation in Fairford, expressed concern that his home would be washed away in the flooding. “I just hope the government remembers how much we’ve lost,” he told CBC.
The Manitoba government has established a $30-million compensation fund to help cover losses incurred by the mini-flooding, which will save an estimated 850 homes.
