What’s in a word? Apparently not a flood
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/05/2011 (5233 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
News flash: Brandon is no longer experiencing a flood.
Really. It’s true. City hall says so.
According to Brandon emergency co-ordinator Brian Kayes, the media, the provincial government and ordinary citizens should not be calling what has been termed Westman’s one-in-300-year flood, a flood.
Curiously, in lieu of the dreaded “f” word, Brandon city hall has decided to call the rising waters of the Assiniboine River a “high water event” instead.
“It’s a term I’ve been trying to get people to use right from the beginning,” Kayes said. “I prefer to look at it as a high water event, because my goal is to prevent flooding into areas that we don’t want it in. So, I look at this as a high water event that we’re going to manage and we’re not going to have a flood … even though it’s in some recreational areas, it’s OK there.”
We could dismiss the use of “high water event” as mere bureaucratic prose; does this also mean that as long as the city is plowing the streets, it’s not snowing?
But then when is a flood not a flood?
It’s not a flood when half of the Wheat City golf course is under water? It’s not a flood when Dave Barnes is forced to use a canoe to get to his property? The Assiniboine is not flooding when at least half a dozen homes in the St. Lazare area outside of the dike have river water in their living rooms?
Tell that to the 1,300 evacuated Brandon residents currently residing in hotel rooms and the homes of relatives and friends, or the businesses that have had to shut down.
The numerous aerial shots of the Assiniboine in Brandon offer rather incontrovertible proof that it has spilled its banks.
But if it’s not a flood, perhaps we should be taking down the super sandbags and temporary dikes in Brandon. But then the evacuated area between 18th Street and First Street would resemble a new lake district. That’s OK, it’s only a high water event.
Someone better mention the change of wording to Manitoba Emergency Measures Minister Steve Ashton, who still seems to think the Assiniboine is flooding — he used the term quite often this week.
And the city’s media liaison hasn’t been briefed on the term, apparently, as the city’s website is still using the term “flood” in its daily updates.
With all due respect, the bureaucrats and government spinners are free to call the flood waters what they like. There are more important things to worry about than what words we use to describe the situation.
A flood by any other name would still run as deep.
But in our opinion, when the Assiniboine River vents its fury on Manitobans by spilling its banks and swamping homes and farmland — whether it happens to be within city limits or outside of them — it’s a flood.
Plain and dictionary simple.