The Province's latest outlook has Emerson-Franklin reeve, Dave Carlson, hopeful this spring's flood will be more of a nuisance than anything, especially after last year's unexpected situation.
Manitoba's Hydrologic Forecast Centre now reports a major risk of flooding on the Red River, and a general low risk on the Roseau River. Both waterways flow through Emerson-Franklin up from the United States. With favourable conditions through the coming weeks, the municipality is looking at a 2019-level event. Unfavourable conditions, however, could result in a 2020-level flood.
"It's nothing we haven't seen and definitely nothing we can't handle," said Carlson. "Unless of course, conditions deteriorate. Our hopes are, looking at the forecast, that things will be okay."
Ideally, Carlson would like to see a bit more snow melt during the day, with a cautious optimism we won't see a repeat of last year when the region got hit with multiple large-scale Colorado Lows in late spring.
"The cooler temperatures at night...and with the wind during the day we're not getting quite the melt we were hoping for at this time. We've got April right around the corner and temperatures could warm up really quickly, so our hope is for more a slow thaw."
Officials from the municipality met with staff from Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation earlier in the week and, based on the latest provincial outlook, Carlson says it looks like the typical partial dike closures will happen at Emerson with some usual roads near the Red River getting overtopped.
"It's the usual low spots. There's the Noyes crossing and also by West Lynne there's a road that typically goes under," he explained. "For Dominion City, we'll have pumps at the ready if required. We're making sure that we're getting snow out of those communities, and we'll be opening up some drains in the next week."
Meantime, Carlson says crews have completed all of the necessarily repairs from damaged sustained during last year's flood. He noted, the Municipality is just waiting on the Disaster Financial Assistance funding to come through.