Hydro crews helicopter into flood-ravaged community to cut gas line amid leak

Multiple Manitoba communities are working to recover services following severe storms this weekend. CTV's Harrison Shin has more.

Manitoba Hydro crews flew into a flooded Parkland community to respond to a gas leak as the rising waters have cut off access to the deluged region.

The leak was reported Monday morning in Minitonas, Man., a community about 375 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. The area was hit by an intense rainstorm early Monday morning that brought turbulent winds and nearly six inches of rain in a few short hours.

A state of emergency was declared in its wake Monday morning after roads and hydro were wiped out and countless basements flooded.

Hours later, the Municipality of Minitonas-Bowsman posted on its Facebook page that residents on a handful of streets were being evacuated due to a gas line rupture on 1st Street West.

“The Fire Department is currently going door to door making sure residents evacuate,” the municipality wrote.

Manitoba Hydro said crews helicoptered into nearby Swan River to cut off the gas line, as floodwaters have blocked road access to Minitonas.

In addition to the leak, the storm’s high winds and heavy rain damaged countless lines and poles in the Virden and Swan River areas.

Nearly 16 hydro poles were downed during the turbulent weather in Neepawa, alone, with another half a dozen toppled in Swan River.

“Those storms packed quite a punch and did cause considerable damage in southwestern Manitoba up into the Parkland area,” said Peter Chura, media relations officer with Manitoba Hydro.

The Crown corporation warned crews may have to de-energize other lines for safety reasons while work is underway.

About 4,000 customers were without power Monday morning, which Hydro was able to bring down to 1,000 outages by late afternoon.

More are expected to come back online Monday night, Chura noted.

“Safety is the highest priority. Anyone who sees a downed power line should stay at least 10 meters away from it and anything it touches, including water, and call 911 to report it,” he said.

‘Significant’ rainfall totals not seen in decades: ECCC

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) meteorologist Matt Loney told CTV News the low pressure system that brought the onslaught was the product of an active jet stream that brought up very warm and humid air from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which then met an upper disturbance over Alberta.

“That contrast caused the air mass to be quite active,” he said.

Residents in the Parkland community were asked to shelter in place as early forecasting predicted upwards of 80 mm of rain, though Loney told CTV News closer to 147 mm fell in about three hours beginning at around 1 a.m. Monday.

“An average June has about three inches of rain. An average July has about three inches, so getting six inches of rain in just a matter of hours is quite significant,” Loney said.

“It’s something that you wouldn’t see in at least 50 years, maybe 100 years.”

It wasn’t the only community struck by inclement weather, either.

According to the weather agency, numerous severe thunderstorms rolled through southwestern and west-central Manitoba Sunday night and into Monday morning.

In addition to rain and strong winds, golf ball and ping pong ball-sized hail was reported in Canupawakpa Dakota First Nation and Ebor, respectively.

‘We can’t even leave’

Minitonas resident Peter Fleming woke up at around 2 a.m. to his neighbour banging on his door, telling him his daughter’s car was being flooded out at her home a few hundred yards away.

“I drove down Main Street and there was like a six-inch wall of water just coming down the road. It was unreal, almost,” he recalled.

That six-inch wall quickly became nearly two feet of water that began seeping into homes.

“There were garbage bins floating around and it was kind of a chaos, to say the least, and it was definitely a flash flood,” he said.

A boil water advisory was also issued Monday morning, as the province warned power outages led to a loss of water pressure in the community’s water distribution system, which can compromise water safety.

The municipality later announced water would be shut off overnight.

Meanwhile, Fleming said the floodwaters receded considerably Monday morning but there is still a big mess to clean up.

“We can’t even leave. The roads are washed out. We can’t go east, you can’t go west.” he said.

“It’s quite a situation that we’re in here, and it’s kind of hard to believe.”

Flooding prompts highway closures

Meanwhile, the Manitoba government has shut down a number of highways in the Roblin and Swan River areas.

According to the province, the following closures are in place due to flooding and water over the roads:

• Highway 83 at the junction with Highway 57.
• Highway 83, 20 kilometres south of Benito.
• Highway 485, two kilometres west of Highway 366.
• Highway 485, one kilometre west of the junction of Highway 488 and Highway 485.
• Highway 486, four kilometres south of Highway 83.
• Highway 488, one kilometre east of the junction with Highway 486.
• Highway 584 for 0.3 kilometres east of Highway 594.
• Highway 10 from Highway 366 to Renwer.
• Highway 268, north of Highway 10 for eight kilometres.
• Highway 366, south of Highway 10 for 1.6 kilometres and north of the junction with Highway 485.
• Highway 367 from the junction of Highway 594 to the entrance of Duck Mountain Provincial Park

- With files from CTV’s Harrison Shin