Winnipeg braces for flood, bets on Duff’s Ditch
Winnipeg (AP)
Rarely has any big city had as much warning as Winnipeg of a natural disaster on the way.

Instead of panic, however, there are painstaking preparations – and hopes that Duff’s Ditch does its job.

For three weeks, Winnipeggers have watched on their televisions as the Red River’s floodwaters surged northward along the North Dakota-Minnesota line, overwhelming dikes and inundating the city of Grand Forks, N.D.

By early next week, it will be Winnipeg’s turn to face the flood crest. The river curls through the heart of the city of 660,000, past posh homes, grimy factories, a major hospital, a children’s museum.

Longtime Winnipeggers thought they had already survived the flood of the century – a deluge in 1950 that forced a quarter of the city’s residents from their homes.

This flood is even bigger. But experts say it will only cause a fraction of the damage of the 1950 disaster, thanks to a huge floodway built in the mid-1960s at the urging of Duff Roblin, Manitoba’s premier at the time.

Critics mockingly dubbed the 28-mile floodway Duff’s Ditch and called it a $60 million boondoggle. But it has prevented more than $1 billion in damage during floods last year and in 1979, and will probably prevent a calamity this time.

"I have no doubt whatsoever that if we didn’t have the floodway we’d be talking potential damage in the billions," said Bill Rannie, a University of Winnipeg geography professor. "It’s such a large number that it’s hard to contemplate."

The floodway is an earthen ditch that cuts a detour around the southeast and east of Winnipeg and rejoins the river to the north of the city.

At the southern edge of Winnipeg, where the floodway links up with the river, there are two big steel gates. The gates can be raised to the desired level to force some of the river’s flow into the floodway.

The floodway, almost 500 feet wide and 30 feet deep, is expected to divert about 45 percent of the flow from the Red River. Both the floodway and the river channel could still overflow their banks because of the huge volume of water, and about 3,000 homes in the city are considered to be vulnerable.

Even with Duff’s Ditch, the city is taking no chances. More than 4 million sandbags have been laid, and a new 14-mile dike has been erected southwest of Winnipeg to prevent the floodwaters from making an end run into town through a tributary.

"If we’re going to lose this battle, it’s not going to be without a heck of a good fight," said City Councilor John Angus, whose suburban neighborhood, St. Norbert’s, would be overrun if the new dike failed.

Winnipeg’s mayor, Susan Thompson, has taken on the demeanor of a battlefield general. Daily news conferences resemble military briefings as she and her colleagues gesture at big maps, outline defensive strategies and detail the latest evacuation plans.

"The community has pulled together fantastically," Thompson said.

Cable TV companies have set up a round-the-clock flood-information channel. One Winnipeg TV station accompanies all its reports with a "Flood of the Century" logo.

Linda Gingera, a first-grade teacher at Inkster elementary school, said she has been trying to help her students cope psychologically with the flood threat since they saw the TV images of Grand Forks.

"Some of them picture a wall of water coming over the city," she said. "We try to assure them that people will have plenty of time to escape."

More than 12,000 volunteers have signed up for flood duty, including sandbagging and helping out the thousands forced from their rural homes south of Winnipeg. Sandbagging at some houses has taken on a party atmosphere.

Even Winnipeggers who live far from the possible flood zones have been given cause to worry. A heavy rain, combined with the floodwaters, could result in raw sewage backing up in roughly half the city’s homes.

Plumbing fixtures designed to prevent such backups have sold out at hardware stores, often at premium prices.

Trying to keep this "flood of the century" in perspective, historians have reminded Winnipeggers that an even worse flood destroyed the original settlement here in 1826.

Francis Heron, a trader with the Hudson Bay Co., wrote in his journal at the time that the survivors, "who meant until recently to pass the remainder of their days in this country, are now determined to abandon it forever."