It has become an annual ritual that southern Manitobans would much rather do without.
Thousands of sandbags have been filled and placed along the banks of both the Red River, from Emerson at the North Dakota border to Lockport, and the Assiniboine River, from Brandon to Winnipeg.
The soil throughout the province is already saturated after record-setting moisture in Manitoba last year and heavy snowfall this past winter, keeping flood forecasters on high alert. The Red River is predicted to crest in Winnipeg by the middle of May but it could begin to overflow its banks near Letellier and Emerson a week or two earlier. Some 560 properties in Winnipeg have been targeted for sandbag delivery.
Near-record levels in Fargo, North Dakota, located about three-and-a-half hours south of Winnipeg, don't necessarily mean a repeat of 1997's Flood of the Century, forecasters say, because the channel capacity of the Red River increases significantly close to the Canada-U.S. border.
from Western Investor, May 2011
