Evacuation Of – Winnipeg Spurred By Threat Of Still Greater Flooding

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27389, 15 May 1950, Page 5

Evacuation Of - Winnipeg Spurred By Threat Of Still Greater Flooding

New Zealand Press Association—Copyright Rec. 8 p.m. OTTAWA, May 13. One-third of Winnipeg’s population of 320,000 will have been evacuated by Monday. The Red Cross described the evacuation as the greatest flood exodus in Canadian history. Seventy thousand persons have left the city by train, planes have evacuated 1200, and motor cars and buses several thousand. The evacuation was spurred today by a report that the Red River, which is surging through the city at seven miles an hour, will bring a new flood crest in about six days. The army continued to urge all citizens not actively fighting the flood to leave. It said the evacuation facilities were adequate at present, but might become difficult with further flooding. Six square miles of the city have been evacuated completely.

Winnipeg has been sliced into six sections by the flood, which may go higher’ under pressure from stormwaters rushing into the Red River from the United States side of the border. , Sixty-three schools have been closed in Winnipeg in the past two days.

Floodwaters are sloshing through six suburban hospitals and 13 nursing homes, whose 2200 patients have been evacuated to other suburbs or towns in Saskatchewan province. The Winnipeg authorities said yesterday that the entire electric power supply would be closed down if the Red River rose 30 inches higher.