Looking back on the flood of 1997

Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Apr. 29, 2022

The 1997 Red River flood was the worst to hit southern Manitoba in 145 years.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/04/2022 (1040 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 1997 Red River flood was the worst to hit southern Manitoba in 145 years.

Before the month-long flood was over, nearly 350,000 acres of farmland was submerged, approximately 350 farmers were affected and about 25,000 residents — 7,000 of them in Winnipeg — were evacuated from their homes.

The river peaked in the city on May 3 and 4.

A group of friends and volunteers south of Winnipeg work furiously to complete a ring dike to save a family’s farm from ruin. (Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press files)

The Red Sea was a massive body of water — 20 kilometres wide at the American border and about 40 kilometres wide just south of Winnipeg — spreading at will across the valley’s flat farmland.

Before it was done, about 8,500 members of the armed forces were deployed here, the biggest Canadian military operation since the Korean War.