Peguis under state of emergency as it prepares for flood

PEGUIS FIRST NATION — No one is at rest in Peguis First Nation Sunday morning.

The entire community seems to be moving in tandem to get as many sandbags filled as possible while they wait — and worry — about impending flooding.

Across from the Peguis Multiplex Centre, 24-year-old Tatum Wahpoosywan is part of a team shovelling sand into sandbags, tossing them onto the flatbeds of trucks travelling around the community and back. Someone has put on music, Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” on a small Bluetooth speaker, and coffee in Styrofoam cups is being passed around.

Wahpoosywan packs the white bags with sand while her family is at home, packing essentials in case they have to leave at a moment’s notice.

“I know my place is going to get evacuated, it’s a high flood-risk zone,” Wahpoosywan said while shovelling. “I don’t know, honestly, how to feel about it — it’s worrisome, stressful,” she said.

Peguis First Nation, along with volunteers and aid organizations outside of the community, have been working around-the-clock since last week to try to mitigate rising water from the Fisher River, after the Interlake community was warned water levels are forecast to be similar to the last severe flood in 2022.

The flood that rocked Peguis First Nation in 2022 still weighs heavily on many. The flood waters destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced around 2,000 people.

Four years later, there are still people struggling as a result, said resident Keith Bird.

“It was a bad one,” Bird, 67, said.

“We lost a lot of homes that were eventually condemned, but simply because people had no other place to go, (people) had to move back into those homes and try and fix them up, and they’re still living in those homes that were condemned.”

But Bird and Wahpoosywan both say one aspect of this year feels different — the community is preparing faster, a state of emergency was called earlier, outside support has arrived sooner, and there’s hope the early action will make a difference.

“What can we do?” Bird said. “All we can do is sandbag and try and try our best to save as many homes as we can.”

The First Nation about 180 kilometres north of Winnipeg declared a state of emergency Saturday, as Chief Stan Bird said flooding had been confirmed and evacuations would be necessary. In a video message published on social media, he asked that residents not panic and “allow the crews to complete the protective work required.”

Fisher River Cree Nation, northeast of Peguis, also declared a state of emergency Saturday.

The federal government deployed Team Rubicon to Peguis last week, and on Wednesday, the Canadian Red Cross said it will deploy technicians and equipment to the community.

Team Rubicon volunteer Jim Sutton and about 70 other members left Peguis First Nation Sunday morning. The team packed around one million pounds of sand into bags over the past week, Sutton said,

“They’ve got a tough go ahead of them, and we may be back,” he said.

About 225 homes in Peguis require flood protection, according to Chief Bird. What comes next for the people of Peguis and their homes, Sutton said, depends on the weather.

“The best thing we can hope for is a cool spring,” Sutton said.

“Unfortunately, it looks like there’s going to be a burst of warm weather next week, but the longer it stays cooler and the slower the snow melts, the less likely this will be (a) super high impact event — it’s going to still be a high impact event, I think.”

Peguis is considered the largest First Nation in Manitoba, with more than 10,000 members, and around 3,800 living on-reserve. The First Nation has a long history of flood struggles. It was relocated in 1907, from farmland near Winnipeg to the river delta where it sits today, in what is now agreed to be an illegal land surrender.

The province’s most recent flood bulletin, published Friday, warned that warmer temperatures expected in the week ahead will melt more snow and heighten the risk of ice jam-related flooding and overland flooding in the Parkland region. Runoff in the Parkland and Interlake regions, along with the Fisher River and Icelandic river basins, is expected to begin in the coming days.

In a statement, minister of emergency management Lisa Naylor said the province was “working closely with leadership in all affected communities, alongside the federal government and the Canadian Red Cross, to support evacuation planning and ensure people can get to safety as quickly and smoothly as possible.”

Provincial staff were in the community moving sand Sunday, including Mary Odere, an employee with the department of Environment and Climate Change who decided to come to Peguis in hopes of helping out.

“I can’t imagine what the homeowners are feeling right now, because it is a lot, there’s a lot to process, it’s a lot to go through. People have been very helpful, and the people here in the community have been very thankful as well, and very appreciative,” she said.

“Everybody’s very helpful. Everybody’s putting in their best efforts.”

» Winnipeg Free Press, with files from The Canadian Press