More flood woes for Deloraine

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This article was published 02/06/2011 (5224 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DELORAINE — Just when Deloraine residents thought their flood worries were over, 100 millimetres of rain fell in a matter of a day or two and basements flooded.

"With the overland flooding we got, the ground is so saturated here that there’s nowhere for it to go," said Deloraine Mayor Brian Franklin, who declared a state of emergency on Tuesday. "If you have any crack at all in your cement, you’re going to have problems.

Franklin, like several of his constituents, had water in his basement because of the sudden, and vicious rain storms that pelted the Turtle Mountains and most of Westman. Franklin said he was lucky. He could still see his basement carpet. Others aren’t so lucky. All over Deloraine, the issues were the same.

"The water kept going up and going up and if it wasn’t for those pumps, we would have been flooded," said Myrna Teetaert, who lives next to Deloraine’s west drainage ditch.

Teetaert was nearly flooded when a pasture south of her house suffered overland flooding. Several other residences just outside of town were attempting to drain excess water using pumps with at least a three-inch hose.

Out in the RM of Winchester, water running down any kind of hill quickly picked up a current and mangled fences. The slightest weakness in the road bed near culverts resulted in the water cutting roads with near precision, in some cases blowing culverts right from under roads and into fields.

Deloraine Golf Course, whose access road was ripped open by water, currently features a gushing waterfall as uncontrollable water flows over top of the Turtlehead Creek Dam. Mist driven by high winds blew back from one end of the 50-metre structure to the other.

"That’s a concern for us too because our water supply is the dam and we’ll have to watch it closely," Franklin said. "We haven’t had a boil-water advisory yet, but there could well be one."

As bad as the water level is on the golf course, the water will drain quickly when it stops flowing, said Bob Willox.

"If we don’t get anymore rain, we should be back open by next Monday," Willox said.

However, that water drains into an already flooded-out Whitewater Lake, and its shores are inching closer to Deloraine than is comfortable for the farmers living along its shores.

North Dakota was also severely affected by heavy weekend rain showers, with 10,000 people evacuated in Minot, from areas near the Souris River.

Residents were told to expect flows of 10,000 cubic feet per second in Minot, after gauges at Des Lacs showed level increased by 2.13 metres in less than a day according to the Minot Daily News, thanks to similar rain showers that pelted Deloraine.

Melita, Hartney, Souris and Wawanesa will almost certainly be affected by Minot’s worries. Not only will that water reach them within a week, the two Saskatchewan-based tributaries feeding the Souris, the Rafferty and Alameda reservoirs, will have to increase outflow as neither as any capacity to hold back water.

Just from weekend rain alone, the Souris River rose 92.3 centimetres overnight at Wawanesa to 353.20 metres above sea level and flow jumped up to 17,600 cfs. Similar increases at Souris meant the river jumped up 75.9 centimetres to 414 metres above sea level with a flow of 15,900 cfs.

Smaller increases were measured at Melita, where an 8.2 centimetre rise put the water level at 429.72 metres above sea level.