Manitoba is grappling with what officials describe as major, multi-regional flooding, driven by unprecedented rainfall that has overwhelmed communities across a large part of the province. More than two dozen local states of emergency have been declared as the water keeps rising.
A large part of southwestern Manitoba is under a flood warning or alert, and officials warned that conditions could still get worse before they improve. The floodwater, they said, has not yet reached its peak, leaving communities bracing for more even as they contend with the damage already done.
The response has stretched resources, with additional help being brought in by helicopter to reach areas cut off or overwhelmed by the flooding. The scale of the emergency, spread across multiple regions at once, has complicated the effort to get crews and supplies where they are needed.
One of the most striking steps came in the city of Dauphin, where a hospital had to be evacuated. Officials said at least 57 patients, including an infant, were moved from the facility to Brandon so they could continue to receive care away from the floodwaters.
Evacuating a hospital is among the more difficult decisions in any disaster, requiring the safe transfer of vulnerable patients, and the move in Dauphin underscored how serious the situation had become. Relocating dozens of patients, including a baby, pointed to the risk officials saw in keeping them in place.
The more than two dozen local states of emergency give affected municipalities added powers to respond, from ordering evacuations to directing resources. Their sheer number reflected how widely the flooding had spread, hitting many communities rather than a single town or region.
With the rainfall described as unprecedented and the water not yet at its highest, officials and residents across the southwest were left watching rivers and forecasts closely. For now, Manitoba faced a flooding emergency that had already forced a hospital evacuation and put dozens of communities on an emergency footing, with the peak still to come.