Manitoba 2011 flood review task force outlines 126 recommendations for future events

A task force appointed to review how the Manitoba government and various agencies handled intense flooding throughout 2011 has released its final report, which includes 126 recommendations on preparing for and handling future events.

Flooding during 2011 was major, affecting 154 provincial roads and highways, 500 municipal roads, 73 damaged highway provincial structures and 500 municipal bridges, says the report from the task force, which was created in February 2012 with the mandate of looking into what worked and didn’t work during the floods.

At the height of the flood, there were roughly 7,100 evacuees, the report also notes. First Nations and remote communities were among the most adversely affected, the report says.

The overall costs for flood preparation, flood fighting, repairs to infrastructure and disaster payments is about $1.2 billion, according to the report.

“Overall, the Province, through the Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) and Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation (MIT), did due diligence in responding to the 2011 flood,” the report says. However, the EMO was understaffed in the field during flooding in 2011, the task force notes. 

In particular, the province’s forecasting during the flood events also needs work, the report suggests. The Hydrologic Forecasting Centre (HFC) had limited experience, the report notes, but was nonetheless able to identify and communicate the flood risks as early as December 2010.

The HFC, however, “faced many operational and technical challenges,” the report says. The HFC lacked a dedicated operations centre at first, but later created a temporary centre for forecasters to work, the report notes.

However, a lack of data management system for handling rainfall data created a great deal of work for the staff, and made gathering and analyzing data time consuming and difficult, the report says.

“The problems encountered during the 2011 flood operations are a clear indication that current level of resources in the HFC are inadequate for floods of the magnitude and areal extent of the 2011 event,” the report states.

The task force recommends a full-time operations centre, a fully functional data management system and four dedicated forecasters for the province to be able to deal with future flood events similar to that of 2011.

The report also recommends that the province look into developing a closer relationship with meteorologists at Environment Canada and the National Weather Service in the United States.

Communications to the public were an issue during the 2011 events, the report says, adding that communications should be more timely. The task force recommends that the province create a public service TV channel, radio station or other media to get details to the public.

The report also recommends appointing a single spokesperson for the province to help “instill trust and credibility in the public.”

Consideration should be given to what road and bridges should be repaired or rebuilt and that all three levels of government (municipal, provincial and federal) need to work together for a permanent solution, especially as municipalities can’t shoulder the costs of the flood damage alone, the report says.

The full report, including all recommendations, is available online through the Manitoba government website.