NEWTON, Man. – With grey skies above threatening rain, a cold and harsh northwestern wind slashing along the ground and a mountain of sand and ripped bags in front of them, members of the Bradley family dug with their hands and one shovel to find a few good sandbags.
Even though they live just a few miles from the dike that will likely be deliberately burst tomorrow, they hadn’t yet had time to build up dikes around their house to protect it from the flood about to hit them.
They were digging up good bags from beneath bad ones yesterday at exactly the moment the provincial government had been saying it would probably break the dike at the Hoop and Holler Bend.
A Western Producer reporter was able to reassure them that the province had delayed the dike breach for two hours. Later that day the provincial government extended the delay until tomorrow.
Being unprepared wasn’t their fault. No one in this area knew until midnight Monday that the provincial government was planning to flood 256 kilometres and 150 homes in their area in order to save 800 homes downstream.
Until Monday night, they were confident their area was as safe from inundation as provincial authorities had told them it would be.
The area then went into a mad scramble, with people hauling possessions and machinery out of the gigantic flood zone and desperately searching for sandbags with which to build dikes to levels that they could only guess would keep the flood waters at bay.
Farmers rushed to get machinery out of areas that will soon be deep in water and many could only look out across acres of valuable farmland and assume there would be no crop this year.
“These bags are seeming heavier than yesterday,” Brock Bradley said with a wry smile yesterday as he felt deep in the sand pile for bags.
“I’m throwing them slower, anyway.”
The family’s aching backs and hands were relieved and their spirits revived when a van pulled up and a volunteer crew of Hutterite women brought out a free lunch of hot soup, sandwiches and coffee. It gave the Bradleys a chance to stop labouring for a few minutes and recharge their batteries before loading another half-ton with sandbags.
The food came from the Elm River Colony, and Joe, who would not give his last name, said they were trying to keep up the spirits of their neighbors, who often were forgetting to feed themselves as they thought only of the impending flood.
“We want to do what we can, to bring you food,” said Joe.
“You’re cold and hungry.”
Joe said he has been told his colony is probably not going to be flooded.
“I think we’re safe, for now,” he said, with the same question lingering in his mind that haunts everyone in the area.
People have been told the water will or will not affect them, depending on the particular elevation of their home and land, but everyone in the area says water driven by force from the breach and pushed by high winds can go directions other than what gravity alone would suggest. Few feel confident, even if they have been told they should be OK.
Elaine Bradley, who has a three-acre saskatoon berry orchard, said she doesn’t know if the dike they are building will be needed to protect them from the flood. No one has given a professional assessment of their particular situation.
“It’s hard to say,” she said, covered in sand, dust and mud.
“There’s so much unknown. Nothing’s known.”
Then she got back to digging.
