Gas leak evacuates part of Manitoba community in the aftermath of intense rainstorm

Minitonas resident Peter Fleming tells CTV News about dramatic flash flooding that inundated the Parkland community, washing out roads and knocking out power.

A rural Manitoba community grappling with the aftermath of an intense rainstorm that flooded roads and knocked out power is now being partially evacuated due to a gas leak.

The Municipality of Minitonas-Bowsman posted on its Facebook page Monday morning that residents on a handful of streets were being evacuated due to a gas line rupture on 1st Street West.

“The Fire Department is currently going door to door making sure residents evacuate,” the municipality wrote.

This comes hours after the community declared a state of emergency due to an intense system that moved in overnight.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) meteorologist Matt Loney told CTV News the low-pressure system was the product of an active jet stream that brought up very warm and humid air from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which then met an upper disturbance over Alberta.

“That contrast caused the air mass to be quite active,” he said.

Residents in the Parkland community were asked to shelter in place as early forecasting predicted upwards of 80 mm of rain, though Loney told CTV News closer to 147 mm fell in about three hours beginning at around 1 a.m. Monday.

Minitonas resident Peter Fleming woke up at around 2 a.m. to his neighbour banging on his door, telling him his daughter’s car was being flooded out at her home a few hundred yards away.

“I drove down Main Street and there was like a six-inch wall of water just coming down the road. It was unreal, almost,” he recalled.

That six-inch wall quickly became nearly two feet of water that began seeping into homes.

“There were garbage bins floating around and it was kind of a chaos, to say the least, and it was definitely a flash flood,” he said.

Manitoba Hydro said the storm’s high winds and heavy rain damaged lines and poles in the Virden and Swan River areas. About 2,000 customers were still without power on Monday afternoon.

The Crown corporation warned crews may have to de-energize other lines for safety reasons while work is underway.

Hydro couldn’t give an estimate on when power could be restored, saying it’s ‘an evolving situation.’

“Crews from other parts of the province are assisting wherever possible and we’re making every effort to safely restore power as soon as possible,” Manitoba Hydro wrote on X.

A boil water advisory was also issued Monday morning, as the province warned power outages led to a loss of water pressure in the community’s water distribution system, which can compromise water safety.

The flooding has also closed a handful of highways in the Roblin and Swan River areas, the province said.

Back in Minitonas, Fleming said the waters receded Monday morning but there is still a big mess to clean up.

“We can’t even leave. The roads are washed out. We can’t go east, you can’t go west. Board crossings are washed out, bridges are washed out,” he said.

“It’s quite a situation that we’re in here, and it’s kind of hard to believe.”

Flooding prompts highway closures

Meanwhile, the Manitoba government has shut down a number of highways in the Roblin and Swan River areas.

According to the province, the following closures are in place due to flooding and water over the roads:

• Highway 83 at the junction with Highway 57.
• Highway 83, 20 kilometres south of Benito.
• Highway 485, two kilometres west of Highway 366.
• Highway 485, one kilometre west of the junction of Highway 488 and Highway 485.
• Highway 486, four kilometres south of Highway 83.
• Highway 488, one kilometre east of the junction with Highway 486.
• Highway 584 for 0.3 kilometres east of Highway 594.
• Highway 10 from Highway 366 to Renwer.
• Highway 268, north of Highway 10 for eight kilometres.
• Highway 366, south of Highway 10 for 1.6 kilometres and north of the junction with Highway 485.
• Highway 367 from the junction of Highway 594 to the entrance of Duck Mountain Provincial Park.