The 1950 Red River Flood

The city of Winnipeg is built at the confluence of two rivers, and every so often the Assiniboine and Red overflow their banks and transform the city into a disaster zone. Although only one person has ever died as a result of the floods - a volunteer pump operation in the 1950 flood - these events have deeply marked the city of Winnipeg and its residents. The 1950 flood was caused by heavy snow cover and sustained for 51 days by heavy rain in May. In low-lying areas the water actually reached a depth of nearly 15 feet, covering a full one tenth of the city in water. In 1965 the city built the Red River Floodway to divert the worst of future floods, but in 1997 even those safety measures could not entirely contain the 1997 flood, one of the highest river floods of the century.