The Red River is making life a watery hell....

[Mark in Oshawa]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090413/manitoba_floods_090413/20090413?hub=Canada

Read about how a flood that will likely be potentially one of the greatest disasters in the Western world in the next year will likely go by without hardly any note.

The people of the Red River valley, both those in the Dakota's and Minnesota and in Manitoba have one of these floods about once every 10 to 15 years, and it amazes me how much damage is managed, how well people deal with this, and just how massive and wide this river gets when it hits flood stage.

A major city (Winnipeg) lies in its path, and has built a massive dyke/ditch complex to pull the water around the city, but for the most part, the whole area goes under water and sandbegs and misery become a fact of life. Yet I suspect outside of the people in the area and all of Canada really pays this much attention. Certainly few in the outside world......

[steve_spackman]

its sad to see people loose their homes and future...no matter where it happens. More so in this day and age!!!

[Garry Walker]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090413/manitoba_floods_090413/20090413?hub=Canada

Read about how a flood that will likely be potentially one of the greatest disasters in the Western world in the next year will likely go by without hardly any note.

The people of the Red River valley, both those in the Dakota's and Minnesota and in Manitoba have one of these floods about once every 10 to 15 years, and it amazes me how much damage is managed, how well people deal with this, and just how massive and wide this river gets when it hits flood stage.

A major city (Winnipeg) lies in its path, and has built a massive dyke/ditch complex to pull the water around the city, but for the most part, the whole area goes under water and sandbegs and misery become a fact of life. Yet I suspect outside of the people in the area and all of Canada really pays this much attention. Certainly few in the outside world......

When people set their minds to it and work hard, they can overcome such disasters. The opposite to that is what happened at New Orleans a few years ago.

[Firstgear]

Check this link for some pictures of the flood.

http://gallery.me.com/oakbluffcolony#100087

The pictures are mostly around the town of Morris, about 50km's south of Winnipeg. The two dark parallel curving bands you see in many of the pictures are trees along the bank of the Red River at normal level. Most of the land not flooded in these pictures will have been protected by ring dykes, or in the case of some smaller properties, built up above a certain flood level since the last major flood.

This has been measured as the second highest flood since levels have been recorded (some time in the 1800's).

[Mark in Oshawa]

Last year I drove up 75 from the Dakota's and the border. I looked at that land and realized why the floods are so ugly when they happen. Once the river is over the banks, the land is so flat that it just spreads out and with the amount of snowmelt and water from this winter, it is just scary.

What I wanted to emphasize about this tho was no one outside of Canada seems to notice or care. Maybe that is the way it should be. Other than the people in the Dakota's and western Minnesota, the American public is basically not even shown this. People are suffering huge losses by a natural disaster that happens about once a generation or two and Canada will not expect help nor ask for any. No one will notice..and life will go on and YET these people if they were in some 3rd world nation might get more sympathy. It is a weird world of perceptions sometimes isn't it?

[Firstgear]

You're absolutely right about it being very flat here. A rise in elevation of about 1 or 2 feet per mile as you move away from the Red River is probably about right.

Another thing, other than just the snow melt, that makes the area more prone to flooding is that the River flows north. So the snow will melt in the States and get to the river and start heading north. This may take a couple of weeks. By that time, we're just starting to get the warmer weather they had and our snow starts melting. So if the timing works out just right (or wrong for us) their melt water hits us, just as our own melt is getting into the river. Usually things don't coincide perfectly and we're ok, but every once in a while, when everything lines up......watch out.

Your comment about people suffering huge losses is correct, but for the most part and most often it's just material losses. People rebuild and have enough of a safety net to survive. When this sort of disaster happens in a country like Bangladesh, the losses are counted in lives, not dollars.

So us not getting much attention up here with our material loss, maybe says that something IS still right in this world.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Firstgear, all I know is you guys see flood waters as nasty as anywhere, bad weather and all the rest of it, and you don't see it as a big deal.

THAT was my point. Us Canadians just shrug off some of this stuff where some people make a big bloody deal out of it. I guess I thought it should be pointed out. I suspect it hasn't made the news outside of Canada and the upper midwest. Once the water goes down at Fargo, it falls of the media radar....

[Easy Drifter]

Mark: There has been fairly serious flooding in Simcoe County and it has barely made the Toronto papers let alone anywhere else. Several areas around Lake Simcoe have flooded because they cannot let the water down the Severn system any faster without very serious flooding there. That is caused by the run off from the Black River which has flooded areas around Washago.The Black flows into the Severn. Probably the worst flooding is Lake St. John. There is a small stream which flows into the Black River from Lake St John. The outflow is controlled by a small dam. The Black is so high the water has been flowing upstream and over the top of the dam into Lake St John! Many homes are flooded, some roads under water and the airport surrounded by water and partially covered.
Really minor compared to the floods of the Red but basically unreported outside of our local area.
The Ontonabee system is also flooding but again unreported pretty much.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Mark: There has been fairly serious flooding in Simcoe County and it has barely made the Toronto papers let alone anywhere else. Several areas around Lake Simcoe have flooded because they cannot let the water down the Severn system any faster without very serious flooding there. That is caused by the run off from the Black River which has flooded areas around Washago.The Black flows into the Severn. Probably the worst flooding is Lake St. John. There is a small stream which flows into the Black River from Lake St John. The outflow is controlled by a small dam. The Black is so high the water has been flowing upstream and over the top of the dam into Lake St John! Many homes are flooded, some roads under water and the airport surrounded by water and partially covered.
Really minor compared to the floods of the Red but basically unreported outside of our local area.
The Ontonabee system is also flooding but again unreported pretty much.

the Otonobee system is always going up at this time of year. I will find out in a few hours about the Gull too.....going up to the park. I suspect the dam at Coboconk will be up to the top and Shadow Lake will be up over the beach at my mother-in-laws trailer camp. Last year the water was up to the lawn (3 feet above its summer level) until Mother's day Weekend....