Flood Level Stabilizes at Border, but Waves Pose New Threat

As the Red River’s levels remained stable and dikes held, Canadian emergency officials were optimistic Monday that the worst may be over for flood-ravaged towns near the Manitoba-North Dakota border.

But upstream in the city of Winnipeg, flood preparations continued at a fever pitch as the swell of the river moved northward.

The level of silty brown water that surrounds the border town of Emerson, Manitoba, an evacuated farm community of 750, has held to within an inch over the past three days, giving officials hope the river had reached its peak there.

Brisk winds whipped up choppy waves on the huge lake that now covers the Red River Valley in rural southern Manitoba on Monday, and officials feared that water crashing against barriers protecting communities would cause them to fail.

But Manitoba flood liaison engineer Larry Whitney said government crews surveying the region by helicopter could see no evidence of major breaches in “ring” dikes around eight farming towns in the expanse of water.

The Red River, which continued to swallow up vast tracts of rural land in the western Canadian province, was estimated to be 18 miles wide at the border with the United States.