LA BROQUERIE, Man. – Calvin Grienke wasn’t shocked by the deluge of
rain that fell on his farm near Steinbach, Man.
The downpour was part of the June 8-10 rainstorms and flash floods that
took out roads, isolated farms and houses and led to the evacuation of
villages in southeastern Manitoba.
Grienke has seen floods before. But he was surprised at the
sledgehammer of wind that came down out of the clouds and hit his hay
shelter so hard some of it ended up on top of his dairy barn.
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“All of a sudden there was a big gust of wind, then bang,” said
Grienke, who was in his dairy barn when the wind hit.
The wind swept under the hay shelter’s roof, popped it off the ground
and wrenched it around, leaving one end hanging off the barn.
Fortunately the hay bales inside the shelter stopped the roof from
collapsing. It would have fallen on a veterinarian working inside a
trailer in the shelter.
Throughout southeastern Manitoba, farmers have been dealing with
effects of the heavy rains. Unlike many areas that had parched soil,
the land here didn’t drink up all the water that fell. Most of the area
has heavy clay soils that water can only slowly seep through.
The area is also near the bottom of a drainage basin, so floods from
elsewhere can rush in and cause problems.
Two days after the big storms had left the area, flash floods were
still appearing, surging down the ditches beside fields and gouging
through roads.
The surges had a cumulative effect, as each surge would add to the
waters building farther downstream. Comparatively dry areas were still
getting flooded June 12.
And people along various river systems, especially the Roseau and Red
rivers, were preparing for crests that were days away, as floods south
of the border drained into those systems.
People from the villages of Sprague and Marchand were evacuated while
the waters surged through their homes.
Many farmers on flooded livestock farms could not leave.
“They had to stay for the animals,” said Larry Tetrault, the emergency
preparedness officer of the Municipality of La Broquerie.
“We have dairy and hog farms, and we wanted to make sure they got feed
and so that the milk could be picked up.”
With 300 millimetres of water over local highways, that wasn’t easy.
But Tetrault said work crews tried to keep essential farm roads in use.
There was little widescale flooding in the rest of Manitoba or in
Saskatchewan. Provincial agriculture departments there say some areas
had patches of flooding in fields, but nothing severe.
“It’s a problem farmers would rather deal with than drought,” said
Terry Karwandy of Saskatchewan Agriculture.
“There’s some damage to the crops, but it isn’t severe.”
Most farmers were thrilled to get enough rain to germinate their crops
and head them in the right direction to harvest. Farmers from
Kindersley, Sask., and north are still generally suffering from
drought, although some patches in the North Battleford area got a good
rain, Karwandy said.
John Hollinger of Manitoba Agriculture said newly emerged crops across
his province have been stressed by the flooding, but it won’t be clear
for some time how much damage was done.
Karwandy and Hollinger said there may be some soil crusting because of
the sudden drying that followed the flooding. That would be hard on
canola crops.
Plant development may be patchy because of the wet sections, Hollinger
said.
But most of the wet patches he has seen in the Carman area appear to be
recovering from the pooled water. Green shoots can be seen and there
are only a few large areas drowned out.
