Red River quickly rising

During the 150-years prior to the construction of the Red River Floodway, the site of present-day Winnipeg was subject to severe flooding on a cyclical pattern. The site suffered a devastating high-water flood on three separate occasions during its recorded history, and experienced a partial inundation with flood waters of lesser impact on an average of once every ten years. The highest recorded flood occurred in May 1826 when flood waters rose to a height of 36.5 feet above the winter ice level in the river, and covered the site of the future city of Winnipeg in up to 15 feet of water. At its crest on May 22nd the 1826 flood created a 25-mile wide lake, inundating 900 square miles of southern Manitoba. The 1826 flood was followed by a major inundation in 1852, when flood waters rose 34.5 feet at the Winnipeg site; and in 1861 when flood waters rose within two feet of the 1852 flood levels.

Lesser floods inundated upper Red River Valley towns and farmlands in 1882, 1904, and 1916, but Winnipeg emerged relatively unscathed. By 1916 Winnipeg had a population of 163,000, and was the third largest city and fourth largest manufacturing centre in Canada. It was a critical link in the east-west rail transportation and communication systems, the metropolitan centre for western Canada, and was widely regarded as the ?Chicago of the North? for its rapid pace of development. With the immense floods of 1826, 1852, and 1861 fading from memory, new residential neighbourhoods were built along the river, and the city remained all but unprotected from flood waters. Moreover, for over thirty years thereafter weather conditions were never such as to produce any serious flooding along the Red River as the city continued to grow unimpeded by the river. Then in 1948 an extensive area of the upper Red River Valley was inundated once again with flood waters, forcing the evacuation of several towns, and awakening concerns about the vulnerability of Winnipeg to floodwaters.

When the great Winnipeg Flood of 1950 struck, Winnipeg had not experienced a major inundation for almost a century, and remained virtually unprotected from rising flood waters. Historically severe flooding was caused by a pattern of abnormal weather conditions that recurred infrequently, but did so in the winter of 1949-50. At the height of the flood over 10,500 homes were inundated in Winnipeg, some in waters up to 15 feet deep in low-lying areas, as water covered almost one-tenth of the city. Over 100,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in the greatest mass exodus in Canadian history.

The flood waters had a maximum flow of 108,000 cubic feet per second, and rose 30.3 feet, forming a lake 75 miles long by 24 miles wide south of Winnipeg. Over 560 square miles of southern Manitoba were inundated with water forcing the evacuation of thousands of rural dwellers from their farms and communities to the south. For 51 days the river remained above flood stage, and for ten critical days the flood waters were within 1.3 feet of overtopping the sandbag dikes and flooding the whole of downtown Winnipeg.

Although Winnipeg?s downtown ultimately escaped flooding, the impact of the 1950 Winnipeg Flood was such that it constituted ?one of the greatest natural disasters in Canadian history.? Moreover, it was the ?most catastrophic ever seen in Canada,? to that date, in terms of the extent of the flood damage, the number of persons dislocated, and its economic impact. Over $22 million dollars was expended by the Manitoba Flood Relief Fund to aid flood victims; and a total of $125.89 million was spent in dealing with the flood damage ($553.5 million in 1991 dollars).