Our provincial government says the various dikes throughout the Red River Valley are very capable of handling the floodwaters that are expected in the coming weeks. Ruth Eden is the Assistant Deputy Minister of Manitoba Infrastructure. She says the dikes may be about 20 years old, but they are well looked after.

"The dike is well maintained, especially the community ring dikes. We've been monitoring them and we do any work that needs to be done to those dikes whenever we see something so the dikes are in very good shape for any flood.

Eden adds all of the dikes are constructed to the level of the 1997 flood plus two feet of freeboard and they are not expecting the water levels this spring to be anywhere near that.

Meanwhile, according to a Provincial spokesperson, as part of regular maintenance to the Emerson bridge along PR 200, Manitoba Infrastructure is removing excess silt material from the embankment slopes under the bridge. It is expected to be completed by early April. The department will be returning after spring run-off to finish the grading and landscaping for this project. Manitoba Infrastructure staff have also been present at the Emerson dike in recent days for a routine flood preparation review.

As for roads going under water, Eden outlines what we can expect.

"If the road was inundated in 2009, there is a pretty good chance it is going to be inundated this year unless there is some work that they know has been done to the local roads. From Manitoba Infrastructure's perspective, we have been doing work on PTH #75 south of Morris. That isn't fully completed yet. There are portions that were under in 2009 that may not be under now, but we have not fully completed that work."

She notes there are no plans to hard surface PR 332 north of Rosenfeld, because it isn't an official detour route according to the province. The gravel road is a common alternate route for people in the area travelling to areas like Morris and Winnipeg during a flood event.