Provincial crews are deployed in a number of communities in the Red River Valley preparing for and implementing ring dike closures. Those preparations are underway in the Town of Morris.
"Better to be safe than sorry," said Mayor Scott Crick.
"I'm expecting they are likely going to be closing the north side of Highway 75 just as a precaution against additional rainfall this coming weekend," he explained. "Hopefully, if we're fortunate and the forecast continues to go down in terms of the amount of precipitation, potentially we might block it just to be safe and be able to take it away in a short period of time."
In its flood report for April 25th, the Province noted it is working to mitigate high waters and keep Highway 75 at Morris open as long as possible.
These preparations come as the Red River is set to receive all of the water from the west, but also the volume that fell south of the International Border in the United States.
"I think there's always a concern, and when I look at the water levels on the Province's flood sheet, we've had our previous crest at 771.3 feet on April 8th. As of the flood report for the 25th, we'd hit 770.74 feet. So basically, we were back at where we had already crested early in April."
"One the one side, I'm hopeful," added Crick. "What I've seen in the U.S. forecasts, especially modelling in Grand Forks, it looks like the water is not going to get quite as high as expected there, which should bode well for us. And hopefully, with the nice warm weather over the next few days, we'll get some of our water cleaned up before theirs shows up."
A flood warning remains for the Red River from Emerson to the Red River Floodway inlet.
A flood watch remains for all Red River tributaries.