The rain has slowed down, and Swan River is starting to pick up the pieces.
Premier Wab Kinew said he'll be activating the province's Disaster Financial Asstiance Program, and will reach out to the Federal Government for additional help. He said that will hopefully help with people's immediate needs.
Rick Wowchuk, MLA for Swan River, said they've had a rough few days, but now that there's not as much rain, starting the cleanup will be a lot easier.
"Definitely a great improvement, we did not have too much rain last night, which was a positive thing, maybe a half an inch in some places. After what we had so far, 150mm around south of Minitonas, stuff like that, it was welcome just having a minimal amount of rain," said Wowchuk.
Even though he's been there for a long time, Wowchuk's community continues to surprise him. The amount of people he saw helping each other with sandbagging, pumping water, and lending a hand however they can, inspired a lot of hope for the community.
"People put out requests I saw on Facebook, and all of a sudden , 30 or 40 people would show up to help sandbag, and there were firefighters, people in the wildfire program, were bringing down their pumps and setting their pumps up," said Wowchuk.
Yesterday, Premier Kinew, Minister Kostyshyn, and Minister Naylor toured parts of Minitonas and Swan River to view the damage, where Kinew made the announcement about the Disaster Financial Assistance Program. Wowchuk wasn't made aware that the ministers would be in his community.
"This is a time where we've got to come together, we've got to put politics aside, and we've got to work together for the betterment of the community of Manitoba and the people that were involved," said Wowchuk.
After urging Premier Kinew and the Provincial Government to expedite financial aid, the Disaster Financial Assistance Program should go a long way. Wowchuk said Swan River's infrastructure isn't looking good, and will likely take a lot of time and money to fully repair.
"There's a lot of rebuilding to do. The structural damage on the municipal roads, on the highways, on the homes, is just second to none. The number of bridges, and this is the only access that people have, there's still people who have not been home since Sunday," said Wowchuk.
Wowchuk said the expedited financial assistance will help avoid a similar situation to Steinbach, where delayed financial assistance caused a lot of problems, and put a lot of the burden on the municipality.
