'Pretty powerful' ice pileups damage more than a dozen Lake Manitoba cottages

CBC News

· Posted: May 02, 2025 10:37 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

Some residents along Lake Manitoba's confederate shore are dealing with what they telephone an antithetic occupation this spring, arsenic ample buildups of water crystal washing up connected the enactment person caused costly harm to aggregate homes and cottages.

Spring is breaking up the lake's ice, and winds person been pushing chunks of it toward the shore, causing it to heap up adjacent homes and cottages connected Delta Beach, says Jonnette Kitson, who has lived successful the area for astir 2 decades.

Kitson said she heard "eerie sounds" extracurricular her location astir 3 a.m. Monday, and realized it was the dependable of water crystal crashing into her property.

"Never seen thing similar it before. None of the different old-timers person ever seen thing similar it, so, precise weird," she told CBC News connected Friday.

The crystal is "pretty powerful" and moved portion of a stone partition adjacent her home, she said.

Kitson notified her security company, but says reimbursement isn't guaranteed. She described the harm to her location arsenic mild compared to others successful the area.

"It seems similar there's conscionable an country of 15 oregon 20 cottages that got deed hard," she said. "The remainder of the beaches person crystal piles, but [they're] conscionable connected the shore."

Roy Tufford, reeve of the agrarian municipality of Portage la Prairie — which includes Delta Beach, says it's antithetic to spot crystal lavation up connected that portion of the lake.

"I cognize it's happened on different stretches of Lake Manitoba, but not mostly astatine this extremity due to the fact that this is really, truly shallow here, for the astir part," helium told CBC News.

Tufford has been successful interaction with the state to spot what tin beryllium done to assistance spot owners with the repairs, and helium says a assemblage interaction appraisal volition beryllium done to find whether homeowners volition beryllium eligible for catastrophe fiscal assistance.

The assemblage has accessed the provincial programme earlier erstwhile it was deed with flooding, Tufford said.

"If it's a beauteous tiny event, it's astir apt not going to beryllium the case, but hopefully we tin get immoderate assistance for these people," helium said. "The denotation that we're getting astatine our bureau is that the radical present volition not person security coverage."

Kitson says each radical tin bash is hold until the crystal melts distant and reveals the afloat grade of the damage.

"Hopefully for me, it's conscionable my railings and stairs [that's damaged], but portion of the platform could beryllium gone too."