FLOOD UPDATE: Corral Centre evacuated; Some dikes going up another 30 cm

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This article was published 12/05/2011 (5561 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon’s evacuation zone has been widened to include the Corral Centre shopping area, and the city is planning to deal with a lot of water, for a long time.

"I want to talk about the incredible strain people are under. This is our new normal," said Brandon mayor Shari Decter Hirst at the city’s daily morning media briefing.

"We’ll get through this, of course."

At the briefing, the city said that the Corral Centre was now under a mandatory evacuation, as was the next-door "Paddock" business centre.

Traffic on portions of 18th Street North will be severely limited, due to concerns over any vehicles hitting the sandbag dike, the city also said. Passenger vehicles will be allowed, but the speed limit will be reduced to 30 km/h between Cumberland Avenue and Parker Boulevard. Heavy trucks are now banned from the street, and pedestrians are asked to avoid the area.

Sandbag vehicles and other necessary flood fighting equipment will continue to use 18th Street and will be escorted by a pilot vehicle.

Brandon Transit will continue to utilize 18th Street to transport volunteers and provide public access to bus service.

All truck traffic will be directed off 18th Street and required to use Highway 110 which will be one lane only and trucks will be piloted. Alternate access will be via Highway 1A through the Kemnay access.

First Street remains closed, with no firm date to re-open, the city says.

No additional homes have yet been evacuated, but the city’s list of evacuated people has swollen to 1,326 registered evacuees, from 543 families.

An additional 50,000 sandbags are to arrive in city today, as the city works to raise dikes by another 30 centimetres between Sixth Street and 18th Street along the south side of the river.

The latest forecast from the province now predicts that the Assiniboine River could rise more than another 20 centimetres, and won’t crest until May 18-20.

That’s pushed back substantially from the forecast last week, which called for the crest to begin around today.

Measured at the First Street Bridge, the Assiniboine was at 360.49 metres above sea level this morning, about six cm down from its record high, hit earlier this week.

Provincial forecasters now say the river could hit a height of 360.72 metres at its peak, with flows that could be as much as 1.16 millions litres per second. The province is calling this year’s flood a one-in-300-year event, surpassing even the so-called "great flood" of 1882.

The city says it is planning for a crest 360.88 metres, plus 60 cm of freeboard.

"There’s no relaxing for anyone… We’ve got to wait things out," said emergency coordinator Brian Kayes. "We are confident that the dike we have built will work."

River levels are expected to remain high for weeks — keeping evacuees out of their homes for the long haul.

However, at least three households have resisted efforts to make them leave. They’re sitting tight, unafraid of either the river or the possible $50,000 fine.

Police say they "continue" to convince holdout evacuees to leave. The mayor said yesterday that they could charge them or force them out as early as today, but police said this morning there was no firm time to start that today.