City of Steinbach conducts investigation into recent rain event – SteinbachOnline.com

“Our hearts are heavy in City Hall.”

This is from Mayor Earl Funk reflecting on how many people were affected by the rain on September 17th.

He says it’s hard to imagine people in our community rising to the challenges they’re facing right now.

“When one of our community members hurts, we all hurt.”

Just over 15 centimeters of rain fell in Steinbach within 24 hours, and many residents experienced flooding in their basements.

Funk says from their perspective as a city, all of their equipment was at capacity.

City staff were on site throughout the night, making sure every pump and drain was working.

He says it rained an incredible amount.

“If there is a single rainfall in over 100 years, i.e. over 15 cm of rain, it simply overwhelms the system. It just came too quickly. We were fine until Tuesday morning and then the rain we got Tuesday morning was a little more than anything could handle.”

Funk adds that not only Steinbach, but the entire region is affected by flooding.

“Other communities had major flooding on Tuesday.”

The city of Steinbach is conducting an investigation to see exactly what happened and where things went.

“Our staff is analyzing what happened and they will submit a report, I estimate within the next week, so maybe two weeks.”

He says at this point they encourage anyone who has suffered water damage to work with their insurance companies and file a claim with Disaster Assistance (DFA).

“So that we can get the province going, because if there is financial assistance, we will continue to do so, with financial disaster assistance from the province.”

Funk once again shares his sympathy with the residents of Steinbach.

“I want to express this as deeply as possible. With everyone affected, it is so hard to imagine so many people suffering damage to their property.”