Rising flood waters force Peguis First Nation to declare state of emergency once again

About a month after historic flooding on Peguis First Nation began to recede, the community in Manitoba's Interlake region is being hit hard by rising waters once again.

A heavy downpour on Tuesday followed by runoff from drainage south of the First Nation led to flash flooding overnight on Wednesday, Peguis Chief Glenn Hudson says.

By Thursday, the community had declared a state of emergency.

Now, roads that had only been cleaned up from flooding last month are again overcome by water, Hudson says. River crossings have been flooded out. 

Some residents who had just returned home are once again pumping water and sandbagging. Others returned just to have to leave once more, he says.

As of Saturday, Hudson says, about 40 homes were affected and roughly 26 basements were completely flooded — 21 of which had just been cleaned up from last month's inundation.

Peguis — the largest First Nation in Manitoba, with 3,521 members usually living on reserve and 6,504 off-reserve members — is no stranger to flooding.

In 1907, the people of the former St. Peter's Reserve were forced onto the flood-prone delta where Peguis is today, about 160 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

"So we're used to the flooding," Hudson said in an interview on Saturday. "But the fact of the matter is, when you get two floods in a matter of eight weeks, it becomes very fatiguing."

The latest flood fight comes as the community is still assessing how it will pick up the pieces from last month's flood. Roughly 1,900 evacuees from Peguis still haven't returned to their homes — and Hudson says some of them might not be able to come back for up to two years.

"Even if we build interim housing, it's going to take many months to do that. So it'll take the end of the summer into the fall if we're going to look at setting up homes immediately," he said. "And to address all of them, it's going to take at least a couple of years."

While the federal government has provided $2.5 million to the flood-ravaged First Nation, Hudson repeated his call that more is still needed for long-term mitigation measures — and soon.

"We need to look at moving faster on the rebuild of our community because we've got to get our infrastructure out of the water," he said.

"It's a situation that's not going to go away as far as response is concerned, involving heavy rains and flash flooding. We have to get long-term flood mitigation in place and that's going to take a couple, three years for that to happen. But in the meantime, we have to be in a constant state of response."

When asked about the issue last month, Federal Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal said his office had received a copy of the long-term infrastructure plans proposed by Peguis and that he'd work co-operatively with the First Nation on long-term solutions.

Provincial officials have also promised to work with leaders in Peguis and with the federal government to improve flood protection in the community, a spokesperson for the provincial government said last month.