Kinew promises disaster assistance for Swan Valley

SWAN RIVER — Residents in the Swan Valley region continue to reel from the impact of devastating floods that forced the evacuation of hundreds of people and stranded dozens more.

Premier Wab Kinew, who toured the region Wednesday, said the province will activate its disaster financial assistance program and the federal government “will be invited to collaborate.”

“There’s just that need to help people out with the immediate food, or folks who can’t make it into work, things like that,” Kinew told reporters at the Swan Valley Municipal Airport after arriving by helicopter from a tour of Minitonas.

“There’s a lot of emotion,” he said. “People are stressed out, some tears, people have been up for … I’m sure it feels like days at this point. But there’s a lot of community spirit.”

The community was already starting to clean up on Wednesday, with people clearing out basements, vacuuming water and mud and sorting out sandbags in Swan River and Minitonas.

Kinew described a piece of land he saw near Minitonas.

“It just looks like a giant tornado tore up what used to be a field of grass, and it’s now a ravine. There’s like just this huge amount of earth missing, and it was just sucked out by the floodwater.”

In Swan River, high schoolers and various people helped sandbag around homes.

“It’s good to see people banding together, and the fact that folks had very little notice and still managed to help people nearby is a real testament,” Kinew said.

Local officials in the region said water levels were receding and that crews were working to repair damaged roads.

As of Wednesday morning, several people in rural parts of Swan Valley West were stranded as roads were washed out and a highway between Swan River and Minitonas was cut to help prevent flooding.

“Since last night, the water in our residential areas has gone down significantly, which is a good thing,” Swan River Mayor Lance Jacobson said.

Water along the Tamarack Creek, typically flowing at little more than a trickle, on Tuesday was rushing several metres high overtop Highway 10 just east of the town and started washing our parts of the road.

Jacobson said cutting the road definitely helped.

“I think it has made a big difference versus just relying on the street culverts that are there. So, overnight we’ve seen a lot of water drop in these areas, so that tells me that it’s doing its job,” he said about the diagonal cut along the highway that took about four hours to fully carve out.

The cut had been requested by the town and the Municipality of Swan Valley West to prevent flooding. Both municipalities, along with Minitonas-Bowsman, declared states of emergency earlier this week.

In Minitonas, the water levels were at the highest, with people’s basements filled completely to the ceiling and some water on main floors as well.

Ken Malley, the municipality’s fire chief, said the community has rallied together since Monday’s flooding, with a school in Minitonas set up as a volunteer hub.

“Everybody’s working together and seems to be going good so far,” Malley said.

The response early on Monday, he said, “was a tough one.”

“I was loading people waist deep water in my truck, getting — trying to get them to high ground,” he said.

“Biggest thing right at that point in time was getting people off the streets.”

There haven’t been any deaths or injuries related to the flooding, he said.

The quick-moving flood was caused by record rainfall and water coming down from Duck Mountain Provincial Park.

An Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist said Swan River between June 1 and June 9 had received 124.1 millimetres of rain, compared to 84.8 mm that it normally sees during the course of the entire month.

Rain was spitting for most of the afternoon on Wednesday in Swan River.

Malley said crews couldn’t have done anything differently under the circumstances.

One of his deputy chiefs saw the water come in from the Duck Mountain, Malley said, and described it as “a tsunami.”

“Honest to God, there wouldn’t have been a sandbag that would have saved us from what happened, didn’t matter how high you piled them,” he said.

While Malley couldn’t give an exact figure, he estimated a couple of hundred people had been affected during evacuations, along with the surrounding area.

In Swan Valley West, Reeve Bill Gade estimated 150 people are unable to use their homes and “far more than that” are trapped because of road washouts.

“There’s no longer a road to get to them — they’re stuck there. We’re trying to get those roads back open before, you know, they run out of food,” Gade said.

He said most people in the municipality typically have spare food on hand, as residents have gone through weeklong snowstorms.

The Sun could see overland flooding over properties south of Swan River and in Minitonas, along with acres of farmland also submerged. Highway 83 had also been cut south of Swan River, but work to reopen it was taking place on Wednesday.

Gade on Monday morning said cleanup had started after what he called a “full-scale disaster.”

Echo Harkiss, who lives in Minitonas, said she woke up around 3 a.m. on Monday during a power outage before opening a window in her living room.

“You could just see the water rushing through, and it sounded exactly like there was a river or lake running through the yard,” Harkiss, a social worker, said.

She said she only had around four feet of water in her partially developed basement.

“In the last few days, I think everyone is running on ‘E’ right now … and just surviving day to day,” Harkiss said.

She said there is also a greater sense of community since the disaster, with people making sandwiches for their neighbours at the local school.

Mark Johnston, the principal of Community Bible Fellowship Christian School, just southwest of Swan River, said Monday started off as normal, but several students left class in the afternoon as roads were starting to close.

In the evening, because of “a wall of water coming into the building,” staff started moving valuable equipment, like computers, out of the school.

“It just didn’t seem real,” he told the Sun near Highway 83, next to the fully submerged entrance to the school.

He said there were about six inches of water.

On Wednesday, a thin layer of mud coated the floors of the inside of the building, including classrooms and hallways, and soaked a carpet in the church area. People with Shop-Vacs were clearing out the mud during the day.

Johnston said knowing financial assistance is coming from the provincial government is a relief.

The school, he predicted, should be open again in September.

Meanwhile, the children will likely be back in class at the Bible college in town as early as Monday.

Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Terri Lang said it’s hard to tell how much more precipitation the Swan River area will see over the next week.

She said the storm earlier this week was “luck of the draw” as to how powerful it was, and that it’s the same case for whether rainfall will happen in the next few days.

She said she can’t “hazard a guess” as to how much rain the region could see.

“Best case scenario is all the showers miss them,” Lang said.

As of Wednesday evening, the Minitonas area still had more than 150 customers affected by power outages, according to a Manitoba Hydro outages map.

» alambert@brandonsun.com, with files from Tim Smith