Storm damage mounts as relief program details still being finalized

One week after major storms battered Manitoba, residents are still picking up the pieces. Harrison Shin has the latest update.

Nearly a week after a severe storm caused widespread damage across Manitoba, one auto body shop co-owner says it remains unclear when the backlog of post-storm repairs will be completed.

Grzegorz Chamurzynski, co-owner of RnG Pro Auto Body, said he has never seen this volume of vehicle damage from a single storm.

“We got roughly between 30 and 40 calls between me and my partner a day,” he told CTV News on Tuesday.

“(My partner) has got 30, I got 30—I’m the part of the remediation on the shop, he’s the part of the collision. So I’m dealing with the water damages, he’s dealing with the hail damages.”

About seven vehicles came into the shop Tuesday, and four on Monday—all storm-related, Chamurzynski said.

Downed trees, debris and more

A City of Winnipeg spokesperson said the storm period, from the city’s perspective, runs from June 9 through 10 a.m. on June 11.

During that window, residents reported 137 downed trees and debris incidents, 137 plugged catch basins on front streets, 47 plugged catch basins in back lanes, and 12 manhole covers that were either lifted, removed or missing as of Tuesday.

Over the full three-day period, eight basements flooded due to overland flooding, while 196 raw sewage backups and 178 clean water sewer backups were reported.

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham told reporters the city’s combined sewer overflow spending—which he said amounts to at least $45 million per year—is aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of sewer backups and basement flooding.

“Of course, homeowners are advised to install sump pumps, backwater valves in their sewer system as well as try to do all possible to mitigate the sewer backup and basement flooding,” he said.

Flood assistance details still being worked out

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said the province’s Disaster Financial Assistance program for flood victims will be structured differently than in previous years.

“We’re looking at ensuring that this DFA program is going to be there for people, so that no one in rural Manitoba gets left behind,” he said Tuesday. “We’re not going to let the rules, as posted on the website, stand in the way of doing the right thing.”

Kinew said residents in the Interlake region told him they had never experienced flooding like this before.

“If you have somebody who has lived in a community for eight or nine decades and they’ve never seen this kind of flooding, it’s reasonable to expect that folks in that area wouldn’t put up flood protection or they wouldn’t purchase overland flood insurance.”

The government is working with emergency management officials to finalize the program’s details, he added.

“The climate is changing, and our policy and emergency response has to change with it. For folks who have never seen a natural disaster of this sort in certain parts of the province—I don’t think we can hold them to a rule that was developed before the impacts of climate change.”