It may have taken almost an extra week but the provincial government last Wednesday also declared the Township of Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls a disaster area. This means the municipality is eligible for funding under the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program (ODRAP). Despite the delay, Reeve Jerry O’Leary praised the provincial […]
District News
Although rain dampened the weekend and the ball diamond in Devlin, it didn’t stop a ball tournament from being completed. When the dust finally settled Sunday, Shade had taken the ‘A’ side crown, the Clippers had won the ‘B’ event, while the River Rats, of Devlin, had captured the ‘C’ […]
Fort Frances OPP have identified the victim of a shooting incident that happened Monday night at a Devlin residence. Jeffrey Louis Shoemaker, 14, of Devlin was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived by ambulance at La Verendrye hospital here suffering from a gunshot wound. A post-mortem was scheduled for this […]
More than two weeks after torrential rains hit the district, the impact is still being felt. Couchiching First Nation ordered 6,000 sandbags from the Ministry of Transportation to deal with rising levels on Rainy Lake. Several homes there are in danger of flooding, with summer students having been enlisted to […]
Water spurted up from toilets, the shower, and the drain. Nothing could stop it—not towels shoved into drains nor an army of volunteers pumping gallons of water for days. In the 25 years Tom Steele has lived in his home at 656 First St. E., he’d seen nothing like it. […]
Damage from last week’s torrential rainfall is expected to be twice as bad as what was caused by last year’s wind storms but district residents are coping with the aftermath. And picking up the pieces should be easier after Municipal Affairs and Housing minister Chris Hodgson on Friday declared the […]
While many district residents battled flood waters last week, the torrential rains hasn’t dampened the progressive march of forest tent caterpillars, commonly referred to here as “army worms.” “They’re a little behind schedule but that’s pretty much what we expected,” said Mark Breon, a forestry health technician with the Ministry […]
Closed highways and washouts played havoc with big businesses that transport goods throughout the district—and are expected to continue causing headaches for weeks ahead. Abitibi-Consolidated had to divert trucks and wood chips, and halt use of hundreds of logging roads in the region, following two days of torrential rain last […]
The Town of Rainy River lifted its state of emergency declaration Friday morning. Despite almost all the flood gates now open at the dam at Fort Frances, the water levels in have dropped by several inches since Wednesday. “Since 10:30 p.m. Thursday to 8:30 a.m. [Friday], the river has dropped […]
Flood waters receded several feet overnight Wednesday on land at the base of the Town of Rainy River. Still, with word at least two more floodgates were to be opened today at the dam at Fort Frances, the town opted to mobilize hundreds of volunteers to fill and deploy sandbags. […]
A pet wild turkey not only flew the coop last week, it fled the country, as well. A week ago, Donna Lowey of Lowey’s Greenhouse and Market Gardens on Highway 602 just west of town noticed one of her nine wild turkeys had disappeared. Over the weekend, her kids found […]
As runoff from Sunday and Monday’s intense thunderstorms poured into the Rainy River, the water rose to critical levels Tuesday morning. That forced Rainy River town council to declare a state of emergency. The call for volunteers to sandbag went out shortly after 9 a.m.—and their numbers rose as steadily […]
