Blizzard...Manitoba's Snow Storm of the Century

Garden Valley Collegiate
Winkler, Manitoba

By Leighton K. (Grade 12)

April 9th Journal:

The blizzard was supposed to hit on Friday evening, and hit it did. I still went out on Friday night, although the roads were slick and the wind was blowing. I went to town and back, doing an average of 60-70 km hour. We live a good 11 miles out of town so the trek is not always safe in the many types of weather that Manitoba gets.

Saturday brought tons of snow and blustery winds. We did not move from the house that day, except to explore our yard. It was still bitterly cold, so we could not stay out long without our faces freezing and our lips turning blue. Already, we could tell this was the most snowfall we would receive all year...and it was still snowing. My younger brother Dwight got stuck at a friend's house about a mile away in the village. He had dared to venture out to have a fun evening, while the rest of us stayed in the house, watching all of the good TV channels go fuzzy. The few channels we had left told us everything about our spring blizzard.

The blizzard also claimed two lives. A young boy in Winnipeg was digging a tunnel in some snow over a ditch; the tunnel collapsed and he suffocated. Also, an elderly man had a heart attack while shovelling his driveway. It seems like all the news has to offer is stories on the blizzard. Maybe that is the only thing they can get out and still be close enough to cover. The news reporters interviewed several workers and volunteers. One tow truck man had been working steadily from the day before at 10:30 in the morning--non-stop for over 24 hours.

Many people had started to sandbag and to prepare for the flood that is coming from the snow we already have. Many people had a ton of frozen sandbags--useless until they thaw.

We thought the coming flood would be bad with the snow we had before. Now, with all of this excess snow, we are in for a doozy of a flood! Flooding is already a huge problem in Minnesota and North Dakota. I had some friends in the Minneapolis area at the time and they said houses are floating away. They barely had any snow, but they did have a lot of wind. In any case, we got nailed with snow.

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