Better safe

As Fort Frances Fire Chief Frank Sheppard himself acknowledged at Monday night’s council meeting, there will be complaints—and questions—about all the fuss should the level of the upper Rainy River fail to reach the sandbags now lining Front Street.
In this case, however, it’s better to be safe than sorry. After all, it’s too late to put out the call for sandbagging if the water already is lapping around your ankles.
As Chief Sheppard also said Monday night, and which was reiterated at this morning’s meeting of the Emergency Control Group, the town is not out of the woods yet with regards to the flooding threat.
Clearly the danger hinges on the vagaries of Mother Nature. Rainy Lake still is expected to rise another 12 cm (five inches) before cresting by early next week—but that’s without any more significant rainfall. Obviously, the situation will change dramatically—and fast—should we get another storm like the one that dumped upwards of 175 mm (seven inches) of rain on the district earlier this month.
Even if Fort Frances dodges a bullet, that also doesn’t mean we all can breathe a sigh of relief. Given the huge size of the Rainy Lake watershed, any rain that falls east, north, or south of us eventually has to flow through the Ranier rapids here.
Compounding the problem has been the persistent east winds, with the resulting wave action on shallow Sand Bay causing shoreline erosion in the Point Park, along Idylwild Drive, and at the cemetery on Couchiching due to the already high water levels.
Efforts to stem the rising waters have been exemplary so far—from an emergency planning standpoint to all the volunteers who came forward to help sandbag here in Fort Frances and all the other communities under threat.
It’s comforting to know residents are ready to band together at a moment’s notice to help keep the water at bay.
More help may yet be needed in this current crisis. And looking to the future, long-term solutions clearly need to be mulled because it isn’t a question of if Rainy Lake will flood again—but when.