Our provincial government says the various dikes throughout the Red River Valley are very capable of handling the floodwaters that are expected in the coming weeks. Ruth Eden is the Assistant Deputy Minister of Manitoba Infrastructure. She says the dikes may be about 20 years old but they are well looked after.

"The dikes are well maintained, especially the community ring dikes. We've been monitoring them and we do any work that needs to be done to those dikes whenever we see something, so the dikes are in very good shape for any flood.

Eden adds all of the dikes are constructed to the level of the 1997 flood plus two feet of freeboard and they are not expecting the water levels this spring to be anywhere near that.

As for roads going under water, Eden outlines what we can expect.

"If the road was inundated in 2009, there is a pretty good chance it is going to be inundated this year unless there is some work that they know has been done to the local roads. From Manitoba Infrastructure's perspective, we have been doing work on PTH #75 south of Morris. That isn't fully completed yet. There are portions that were under in 2009 that may not be under now, but we have not fully completed that work."

The most recent flood forecast predicts water levels could be one to one-and-a-half feet higher than they were in 2009.