River nears top of Melita dike

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This article was published 20/04/2011 (5499 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MELITA — Southwest Chevrolet is open for business, but you won’t find any cars on the lot or in the showroom.

The vehicle inventory has already been moved to the town’s arena complex. Even as the dealership tries to carry on making deals, their focus is on water levels, not dollar figures.

"The problem is it costs you money waiting for this mess to come and go, and it could be catastrophic if it floods us because it would take us out for months," said Dwight Murray, the dealer principal of the car dealership 142 kilometres southwest of Brandon. "We’d find a way to carry on, but we won’t be here because the water would be here for at least a month. It’s hard to do business because nobody’s head is in it."

The Souris rose to more than 429 metres above sea level Tuesday. The river now looks more like a lake than a river channel, as the still-heavy snow pack deposits surround the town. Much of the worry, visible on several faces in the community, centres around uncertain flood forecasts for the Souris River, which has consistently risen 15 centimetres a day.

"The crest is so-called seven days away," Murray said. "It’s going up six inches a day in 24 hours and we have 18 inches of dike left without this (inflatable dike). So if it comes up for three more days, it’s going to be there."

Because water was around 30 centimetres from the top of the ring dike in some places, Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation was quickly installing inflatable dikes along Highway 3, where water has started to swallow up gravel shoulders, and on top of the ring dike. If water breaches the main dike of the town, built to 430 metres, it will flood the dealership’s building with 75 centimetres of water.

"I don’t think anyone thought this was going to be our big one, but they should have," Murray said. "There was tons of rain last year, the ground was saturated, every pond is full of water, there’s tons of snow everywhere. You would have thought everyone would have been screaming about it this spring. But they weren’t. I’d say it snuck up on us a little bit."

Melita’s flood protection improvements in 2009, which included work on the ring dike and raised road beds on Highway 3, left many feeling comfortable they could deal with the flood of 2011.

"The bridge and the dike was brought up, so we thought we would be good forever," Murray said. "Well for us, forever came two years later."

A swollen Souris River has forced other businesses just inside the primary flood protection to rapidly move inventories away from potential harm.

Next door to the dealership, a farmer with huge 38,000-bushel steel grain bins had two augers quickly filling two grain trucks in an effort to ship as much grain as possible to the terminal at Elva.

"We don’t really know what else to do with the rest of it, so we’ve gotta hope the water doesn’t go over the dike," said Wayne Tilbury, who farms approximately 12,000 acres just south of Melita. "We’ve got no choice. We have to move it now and sell it. When the elevator says whoa, I guess we’re done hauling."

By noon, he had already moved 30,000 bushels from the bins, which were built to the 1976 flood level. At Tilbury’s farm, a normally dry creekbed, locally known as the Blind Souris, has flooded roads, making his house a virtual island.

"We were wondering what we’ll do come seeding time because if they cut roads, that makes it tough for us to get around," Tilbury said.

Further east, an auto electric business owner had stripped his building of merchandise, shelving and other office equipment, storing it on higher ground as a precaution.

"Personally, I think the dike will hold, but it will be nice to see extra protection out there," said Arleigh Gibson, owner of Gibson Auto Electronics. "We’re concerned. We have a lot on the north end of town. It’s a pain in the butt and we are still working, but it’s a lot of travelling back and forth to get tools."

Bruce Rudneski, owner of the White Owl Esso station inside the ring dike on Highway 3, debated whether to order more gasoline or let his tanks run dry.

"Sure it’s a worry," Rudneski said. "It’s a wild card for us because the town wants us to keep gas in the tanks because emergency vehicles need fuel. So if we get a load of fuel at $60,000, I don’t know if I want to put that in the ground. It would sit right here if it floods and there’s no insurance on the fuel. If it comes out of the tanks, we’re out."

Rudneski has extended the intakes into his gas tanks and said Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization has assured him the dikes won’t breach, but Melita officials had to contend with a leaking dike earlier this week.

"If the water crosses that dike, we’re on our own and it’s extremely dangerous to have fuel sitting right here," Rudneski said.

Provincial and town officials worked alongside volunteers from Melita School at a hastily built hesco dike along Highway 83, just inside town limits.

"We’re saving the town from the flood," student Krista Van Cauwenberghe said.

"We had to go to one class, the rest we’ll work here. I thought it was important to help the town."

That dike, which was being filled yesterday afternoon, is now set up as a secondary dike in case water spills over the main dike.

"The worst part about disasters is the worst one has yet to come," Rudneski said.