Manitoba exploring how to help Interlake region recover from heavy rain

Manitoba's Interlake region dealt with heavy rainfall over the last couple of days according the province, which resulted in multiple washed out roads.

Government officials toured the area on Thursday to get a better understanding of the impact of the storm and figure out next steps.

Manitoba’s Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Doyle Piwniuk said the area received around 75 millimetres of rain over a three-day period, resulting in a lot of devastation.

"Especially when it comes to municipal roads and provincial highways, and we also saw the water in the fields and stuff like that, so that's impacting the area," said Piwniuk.

Despite the damage, he did note some positivity from the storm, as winds were not as strong as initially forecasted.

"We saw about two feet (of waves) and really it spared a lot of cottages along Lake Winnipeg."

Piwniuk said the province has to develop a plan to see what infrastructure needs to be put in place to make the area more flood-resistant.

"We will definitely look at our options to make sure what happened during these events and then find out what we need to do. If it has to be that we have to invest in bridges, we will do that."

Sarah Thiele, the deputy minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, said the province will have a very long list of repairs to deal with.

"On the municipal side, firstly, we've had almost 2,000 sites identified around the province. For provincial infrastructure, our list is growing. We are still assessing, and we still have areas that are under water, that we can't look at yet. So it will be a significant recovery program," said Thiele.

She said most areas will have something in place by the end of the summer to ensure accessibility. For the more serious damage, she said it could take a couple of years, as they would have to design the appropriate infrastructure for the area.

"Our priority is always ensuring essential access remains for communities, and we will do those projects first, get it open, make sure emergency vehicles can come in and then we will come back and do the permanent repair. We can always consider improvements as well."

Pinwinuk said the province will have to work with the federal government to determine what would work best in the Interlake to make sure events like this don't happen again.