Canada: Five dead, homes swamped and many still in dark after blizzard hits Prairies
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Pastor Dale Morgan
May 1, 2011, 11:57:03 PM5/1/11
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Times and Climate Change
Canada: Five dead, homes swamped and many still in dark after blizzard hits Prairies
at 18:07 on May 01, 2011, EDT.
The Canadian Press
BRANDON, Man. - Five people have died in two separate accidents during a prairie blizzard that closed highways, snapped power lines and whipped up waves that overwhelmed the sandbag dikes around homes whose owners were already exhausted by weeks of flooding.
In one accident, two soldiers based at Canadian Forces Base Shilo in Manitoba died early Sunday after the SUV they were in went out of control while crossing a bridge east of Brandon, landing upside down in a creek.
Police say the 26-year-old male driver and a passenger in the front seat died at the scene. Two fellow soldiers, a 27-year-old man who in serious condition with life threatening injuries and a fourth man who suffered injuries described as non-life threatening, were also hurt.
Also on Sunday, three people died in a single vehicle accident near the community of Hamiota, northwest of Brandon when a pickup truck with five passengers lost control and hit a tree.
Police say the 23-year-old male driver and a 35-year-old woman, both from Hamiota, were killed along with a 35-year-old man from the Rural Municipality of Woodworth.
"The weather was horrible. Roads were terrible. We have a lot of water here in Manitoba as you know, and it's creating a lot of havoc," RCMP spokeswoman Line Karpish said.
Karpish said weather was a factor in both crashes, however she said other circumstances may have played a role. In the first crash involving the soldiers, she said the road may have been OK but the bridge may have been frozen. In the second crash, she said speed may have played a role.
"I'm good to blame the weather but we still have investigations to do," Karpish said.
Saskatchewan was the first province to bear the brunt of the storm, where some areas in the southeastern part of the province reported receiving up to 30 centimetres of wet snow by Saturday morning, driven by wind gusts that reached 90 km/h.
Thousands of SaskPower customers spent more than a full day without electricity after high winds broke poles, snapped lines, or felled trees on top of lines.
Accoding to SaskPower spokesman James Parker, the storm was hampering efforts to fix the lines, and some people weren't expected to get their service back until as late as Monday morning.
"We've been hampered by the fact that Highway 1 was closed. We've been having trouble reaching areas," Parker explained on Sunday, noting that flooding in the province was compounding the problem.
"We have some poles west of Estevan that need to be fixed, but there's water everywhere."
Home and cottage owners, meanwhile, that live along the lakes along the Qu'Appelle River in Saskatchewan were faced with waves of up to three-quarters of a metre high crashing over the tops of the sandbag dikes they erected when the higher-than-normal spring runoff caused water levels to rise almost three weeks ago.
The Manitoba government said Sunday that flood protection systems remained secure across the province despite the high winds, and snow that in some higher elevations measured up to 50 cm.
Provincial flood forecasters in Manitoba said the extra snow would produce higher water flows in tributaries of the already-swollen Assiniboine and Red rivers. The forecasters said the storm was not expected to cause either river to crest higher than already predicted, but they anticipate the extra precipitation would prolong the crests.
The storm could produce localized flooding in the Souris River basin, although the river itself is declining.
Many of the hardest hit flood victims in Saskatchewan believed the worst of their ordeal had passed when the ice on some of the lakes melted last week, meaning that strong winds wouldn't end up pushing ice chunks into their homes. But the waves from the weekend storm were so strong they overwhelmed many dikes.
Len Antal, who lives on Crooked Lake, said that despite the damage, it could have been worse.
"If the ice was still there now and this weather hit, it would have been unbelievable," Antal said.
Canada: Five dead, homes swamped and many still in dark after blizzard hits Prairies
at 18:07 on May 01, 2011, EDT.
The Canadian Press
BRANDON, Man. - Five people have died in two separate accidents during a prairie blizzard that closed highways, snapped power lines and whipped up waves that overwhelmed the sandbag dikes around homes whose owners were already exhausted by weeks of flooding.
In one accident, two soldiers based at Canadian Forces Base Shilo in Manitoba died early Sunday after the SUV they were in went out of control while crossing a bridge east of Brandon, landing upside down in a creek.
Police say the 26-year-old male driver and a passenger in the front seat died at the scene. Two fellow soldiers, a 27-year-old man who in serious condition with life threatening injuries and a fourth man who suffered injuries described as non-life threatening, were also hurt.
Also on Sunday, three people died in a single vehicle accident near the community of Hamiota, northwest of Brandon when a pickup truck with five passengers lost control and hit a tree.
Police say the 23-year-old male driver and a 35-year-old woman, both from Hamiota, were killed along with a 35-year-old man from the Rural Municipality of Woodworth.
"The weather was horrible. Roads were terrible. We have a lot of water here in Manitoba as you know, and it's creating a lot of havoc," RCMP spokeswoman Line Karpish said.
Karpish said weather was a factor in both crashes, however she said other circumstances may have played a role. In the first crash involving the soldiers, she said the road may have been OK but the bridge may have been frozen. In the second crash, she said speed may have played a role.
"I'm good to blame the weather but we still have investigations to do," Karpish said.
Saskatchewan was the first province to bear the brunt of the storm, where some areas in the southeastern part of the province reported receiving up to 30 centimetres of wet snow by Saturday morning, driven by wind gusts that reached 90 km/h.
Thousands of SaskPower customers spent more than a full day without electricity after high winds broke poles, snapped lines, or felled trees on top of lines.
Accoding to SaskPower spokesman James Parker, the storm was hampering efforts to fix the lines, and some people weren't expected to get their service back until as late as Monday morning.
"We've been hampered by the fact that Highway 1 was closed. We've been having trouble reaching areas," Parker explained on Sunday, noting that flooding in the province was compounding the problem.
"We have some poles west of Estevan that need to be fixed, but there's water everywhere."
Home and cottage owners, meanwhile, that live along the lakes along the Qu'Appelle River in Saskatchewan were faced with waves of up to three-quarters of a metre high crashing over the tops of the sandbag dikes they erected when the higher-than-normal spring runoff caused water levels to rise almost three weeks ago.
The Manitoba government said Sunday that flood protection systems remained secure across the province despite the high winds, and snow that in some higher elevations measured up to 50 cm.
Provincial flood forecasters in Manitoba said the extra snow would produce higher water flows in tributaries of the already-swollen Assiniboine and Red rivers. The forecasters said the storm was not expected to cause either river to crest higher than already predicted, but they anticipate the extra precipitation would prolong the crests.
The storm could produce localized flooding in the Souris River basin, although the river itself is declining.
Many of the hardest hit flood victims in Saskatchewan believed the worst of their ordeal had passed when the ice on some of the lakes melted last week, meaning that strong winds wouldn't end up pushing ice chunks into their homes. But the waves from the weekend storm were so strong they overwhelmed many dikes.
Len Antal, who lives on Crooked Lake, said that despite the damage, it could have been worse.
"If the ice was still there now and this weather hit, it would have been unbelievable," Antal said.
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