Floodway & Portage Diversion in operation
Manitoba’s flood fighting is in full swing Friday as the province lifted the gates on the red river that diverts water into the floodway channel. Manitoba Infrastructure’s Hydrologic Forecast Centre reports that water was diverted throught the floodway just after 10:00 am this morning. Currently the volume of water in the channel is 4,061 cubic feet per second (cfs).
The water level at James Ave is 18 feet, up 2.2 ft. since Thursday. Officials say that they expect that Red River water levels at James Avenue in Winnipeg will rise to approximately 18.8 ft. by Sunday.
West of the city on the Assiniboine River the Portage Diversion also began operation Friday. Currently flows in that channel are 1,965 cfs and flow on the lower Assiniboine River is 5,090 cfs.
With operation of the Red River Floodway taken into consideration, City of Winnipeg engineers now believe that only 25 homes are in need of sandbagging. 20,000 will be used to support those properties. Estimates on Thursday had 50 homes and 75,000 sandbags earmarked to fight flooding.
The most at-risk property began constructing its dike yesterday. City officials will be visiting the 25 properties identified as at risk to update survey readings and consult with owners.
If you are not contacted by the City of Winnipeg regarding the need to build a sandbag dike, your property has not been identified as being at risk of river flooding.
News4 will continue posting updates on the flood situation here and on our social media sites throughout the weekend and until the risk is over.
-News4 Staff-
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