Selkirk condo building inundated with water as Manitoba slammed by spring storm
Son of resident wants City of Selkirk to address drainage issues that led to flooding
Residents of a Selkirk condo complex watched in horror over the weekend as water breached the banks of a creek and quickly flowed toward their homes, eventually lapping at their windows and gushing in.
People at 320 Pearson Parkway, a 55+ complex in the Creekside subdivision, noticed water creeping up on Saturday afternoon, the son of one resident said.
Residents and family members, some well into their 80s, started piling up sandbags, Matthew Prychun said.
"These are people that sold their big homes or their farms or their properties and bought these nice, expensive condos to relax and not have to worry about sandbagging or cutting grass or moving snow," he said.
"Here we are at 11 p.m, 12 a.m., three in the morning, moving sandbags and snow, you know, an 80-year-old. It's just heartbreaking."
Many residents went to bed, not expecting to be inundated, but water drained from neighbouring areas into their area, Prychun said.
"I think everybody kind of thought nothing was going to come of this. You know, a lot of people have lived here now for five, six, seven years, and we've never ever seen something like this," he said.
WATCH | Matthew Prychun shows the extent of the flooding at his mother's condo complex:
Prychun has spent hours at the complex, first sandbagging, then pumping water and salvaging valuables.
Resident Marlene Dawson thought they had done enough sandbagging on Saturday afternoon to protect the complex.
"I didn't think anything was going to happen, personally speaking, and then it just started to come up in the evening and overnight. Suddenly it came up right against the house, and it was two feet — certainly not what we sandbagged for," she said.
Dawson has lived in the complex for 16 years, and has never seen the creek behind the building flood its banks.
Built for 100-year flood: city
Prychun believes water flowed from nearby developments and pooled in the area outside of his mother's home.
He thinks it could have been preventable, with a proper drainage assessment before construction — but the City of Selkirk said that was done.
"A drainage assessment was conducted during the developmental phase of the Creekside subdivision in 2005. The retention pond located behind Howard Place (in Creekside) is designed to withstand a one in 100 year storm event," Vanessa Figus, Selkirk's communications co-ordinator, said in an email on Monday.
"The ground is frozen throughout Manitoba, making it impossible to absorb water from the annual snowmelt paired with the back-to-back storms we have received."
The storm has exceeded the capacity of Selkirk's drainage system throughout the city, she said.
The city deployed pumps during the weekend and will continue to do so to bring water levels down, she said. Sandbags have also been made available upon request directly to homes and to central locations.
Prychun grew up on a farm on the flood plain and became accustomed to snapping to action to work with hundreds of people to protect property from encroaching floodwaters.
They are memories he had hoped to forget.
"It's so traumatic and upsetting. Water does what it wants to do … and you can't control it."
Dawson said she's in a holding pattern.
"I'll let the house dry out for a bit and then assess the situation about mould, check to see what's going on and and then do what I have to do."
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With files from Jérémie Bergeron