Reeve asks for quick fix to damaged bridge on Highway 83

A bridge damaged by flooding in the Rural Municipality of Riding Mountain West has had to close and local officials want the province to take action quickly.

The bridge over the Shell River on Highway 83, northwest of Inglis, is a key route for much of the RM. Reeve Grant Boryskavich said the riverbanks that support it were washed away in hours on Thursday.

“At 11 o’clock in the morning the embankment had started to wash and by five o’clock that night, you could start to see the pillars,” he said about the bridge, roughly 320 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

Like Swan River and Minitonas, Boryskavich said the community was hit hard by the massive storm that dropped almost 150 millimetres of rain on the Parklands region. The area had to deal with water flowing from Saskatchewan as well, causing the Shell River to swell to more than three times its normal flow.

“We just seemed to get hammered a little more than anybody else,” he said.

Two other bridges have been washed out, roads that were just repaired following the spring melt have been ruined and at least one campground has been flooded, Boryskavich said.

The RM is “feeling forgotten” by the province because it’s been tough getting information about repairs.

“Right now, we’re in limbo,” said Boryskavich.

He said Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor has been receptive to their concerns and toured the area in the past, but action is needed right now.

“It’s a compounding event,” he said.

The Free Press has asked the government to comment.

morgan.modjeski@freepress.mb.ca