Flood sends Minnedosa students back to remote learning

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This article was published 18/05/2022 (1444 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MINNEDOSA — The past 24 hours have been critical for residents to shore up sandbagging efforts while water continues to pour from the town’s dam. It’s affecting everyone in the community in one way or another.

Students at Tanner’s Crossing School and Minnedosa Collegiate shifted to remote learning Wednesday for an uncertain time period, after the Town of Minnedosa declared a state of local emergency Tuesday morning as a result of overland flooding.

Power was shut off at Minnedosa Collegiate as early as Saturday in order to take proper precaution in case of flooding, said Jason Cline, superintendent of Rolling River School Division.

Cline said he met with Jim Doppler, chief administrative officer (CAO) for the Town of Minnedosa, and it was decided for the safety of staff and students to close both schools in the division on Monday.

Water was already approaching a crawl space underneath Minnedosa Collegiate, he said, which is not uncommon due to its close proximity to the Little Saskatchewan River.

On Monday afternoon and Tuesday, staff at both schools were brought in on buses to gather materials for students to create paper packages and retrieve devices so children could connect to the classroom for remote learning.

“We’ve set remote learning for this week and next week, if things improved drastically, we would of course bring them back as quick as possible,” Cline said. “We wanted to create a bit of consistency, kids know what remote learning looks like as best they can with some paperwork and synchronous classroom team meetings live while their teachers are teaching from home.”

Cline said everyone in the community is anxious about what the upcoming precipitation will bring this week, but was relieved to see how many people in the town have stepped up to sandbag and support each other.

“It’s brought the community together in a common goal of helping the neighbours out and helping the schools and businesses,” he said. “Right now, they are super-sandbagging behind Minnedosa Collegiate and are doing incredible work.”

No long-term decisions have been made as to when the schools could reopen, Cline said, and a river of water remains on Armitage Avenue, preventing most traffic from reaching each building.

In the flooded football and soccer field behind the school, Ryan Wollman and nine other residents from the Spring Hill Hutterite Colony formed a crew to start filling the super sandbags in a relentless effort to stop the water.

In what seemed like a losing battle, Wollman said they started at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday and worked until 9 p.m. on Tuesday, filling hundreds of sandbags along the dike.

He said in the short term, water levels have slightly receded, but setting the sandbags has become increasingly difficult due to the levels of water already on the other side of the dike.

“Behind the collegiate, we actually sank one of the bigger backhoes. Overall, it has been challenging.”

For the 10 guys in the crew, it’s an opportunity to give back to Minnedosa after a significant flooding event took place in 2020, putting their lives at risk.

“We had our colony flooded a few years ago and a lot of people helped us out. This is just us paying back [the community], we love helping out,” he said.

“You got to do what you got to do.”

Resident Blaine Instance has spent the last eight days sandbagging in various parts of the town. On Wednesday afternoon, Instance and his friend Bob Horner shored up a large wall of sandbags in Tanner’s Crossing Park, which a day before was empty.

It’s been difficult to withstand the wrath of Mother Nature, Horner said, including five holes of the Minnedosa Golf and Country Club flooded out, a place he is fond of.

Both gentleman said they were a little more optimistic than yesterday based on water levels, but awaited results of the province releasing a log in the dam at 4 p.m. before they could feel better.

“It’s been pretty spectacular, really,” Horner said after watching dozens of people step up to sandbag.

Doppler spoke to the Sun Wednesday afternoon and said operations for the town were concentrated on the filling of the super sandbags in areas of concern, such as the backyard of Minnedosa Collegiate and homes along Second Avenue Northeast.

Walking down that avenue, dozens of people from Neepawa and Brandon joined Minnedosa residents and a convoy of trucks filled with sandbags stretched down the neighbouring street ready to help out.

Doppler said a second set of logs would be removed a few hours after 4 p.m. on Wednesday depending on flow levels measured by the province. He said the expected 20 to 50 millimetres of precipitation between Tuesday and Thursday were concerning going forward.

The logs are removed to relieve pressure from the dam that oversees water from Minnedosa Lake.

Heading up toward the dam, Sheila Thiessen and Tony Mullie observed from above as several residents gathered to watch as logs were removed Wednesday afternoon.

Thiessen, a local resident of 17 years, said this past week has opened her eyes to just how much the people of the community care about each other.

“Here you know so and so, whose business is going to flood, or whose home is getting water,” Thiessen said.

“It’s more personal and somebody said ‘my home in the trailer park is flooding,’ and people show up to help.”

The past week has generated a multitude of emotions for her — everything from anxiety, stress, nervousness, pride and invigoration.

“I moved here on a whim and I have never once been sorry that I came here,” she said. “You’re happy because there’s so many people pulling together.”

» jbernacki@brandonsun.com

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