Officials in Brandon said the city’s dikes held despite a summer storm dropping 38 mm of rain on the city in just 15 minutes in the hours before the expected crest of the Assiniboine River.
Mayor Shari Decter Hirst said all crews in the city were deployed overnight to deal with issues caused by the storm that hammered the city just after 10 p.m.
“We were all very relieved to see the sun come up this morning,” she said.
CTV News staff on the ground in Brandon saw downed trees, flooded streets and water spewing from manholes.
The city said dozens of trees were uprooted and nearly ten of them fell across streets.
Power lines were down in at least two locations and Manitoba Hydro tweeted Sunday morning it was still assessing damage and making repairs from the storm.
At a news briefing Sunday morning, Hirst said the storm may have delayed the crest of the Assiniboine River that was expected to happen around midnight.
At the time of the news briefing the water was two feet below the top of the dike and remained below levels from the 2011 flood.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to visit Brandon and view damage caused by flooding on Sunday.
Compounding problems for city staff, fire fighters were kept busy immediately after the storm by a stubborn blaze that destroyed a local restaurant.
City officials said they did not believe the storm caused the fire.
It is not clear yet how the rain that fell during the storm will affect expected flows further east on the Assiniboine River where the province is preparing to potentially make a controlled breach of the dike at Hoop and Holler east of Portage La Prairie.
300 members of the Canadian Forces are currently working in that area to shore up dikes and sandbag vulnerable properties.
