Southeastern Manitobans wade through flooded streets, basements after massive downpour
CBC
People in parts of southeastern Manitoba are dealing with overland flooding after heavy rain swamped the region Monday into Tuesday.
Stephen Berg, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said a slew of thunderstorms started rolling into southeastern Monday morning, bringing heavy rainfall and a tornado warning for the region on Monday afternoon.
Elma, a community in the Whiteshell area in eastern Manitoba, got the highest amount of rain in the province, with 205 millimetres recorded over a 36-hour period, Berg said Tuesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Environment Canada said the city of Steinbach had 156 millimetres of rain between Monday and Tuesday, leading to overland flooding and some road closures.
Heavy rains also hit some communities further west, with Winkler getting 133 millimetres, according to Environment Canada.
"This is quite an event," said Berg. "You'd expect an event like this one once every 120 years, 130 years or more."
An animal shelter that recently opened its doors in Steinbach was among the buildings that had basement flooding on Tuesday.
"The ribbon cutting was last week … something we've worked towards for years," Sandra Watson, a volunteer adoption co-ordinator at the shelter, told CBC News on Tuesday.
"It is a big blow."
Water started pooling in a ditch in front of the shelter on Tuesday morning, but with no immediate indication of flooding risk, Watson said the shelter kept running as normal.
But by noon, the water started flooding the shelter's backyard, and soon after, the building had become an island surrounded by rainwater, she said.
As the water started pouring through windows into the shelter's basement, volunteers worked to move animal food and supplies into a storage room.
"But it [the water] was coming in fast, and we eventually had to just stop once it became waist-high," she said. "It was unsafe for our volunteers."
Watson said no animals were injured during the flooding, and the shelter is in the process of relocating them to foster families or other animal hospitals while the water is pumped out.
