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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #60156 Easy The Red River Flood of 1950 and the channel that followed it

Read the following passage.

A. The Red River often overflows its banks in spring, especially in rural areas south of Winnipeg. By 1950, however, the city had not had a major flood for almost a century, and new neighbourhoods had been built along the river with little protection. The winter of 1949 to 1950 was one of the worst in years, with an abnormal amount of snow. As that snow melted, the river reached flood levels in Winnipeg by April 22. City engineers and the Manitoba government began to strengthen the dikes that had been put up in a hurry during a smaller flood in 1948.

B. Early in May, heavy rain made the situation much worse. After rain fell all day on May 5, the dikes in the Riverview and Point Douglas districts failed overnight as sirens sounded across the city. Provincial and federal leaders had been slow to declare an emergency, but one was finally declared, and the Canadian army was placed in charge of the flood fight. Thousands of volunteers worked long hours beside soldiers to build and hold the dikes. The river rose to a record 9.2 metres at James Avenue and stayed above flood stage for 51 days.

C. More than 100,000 people were forced to leave their homes, although one account gives a lower figure of 80,000. On May 10, Brigadier R. E. A. Morton, the army officer in charge, called for all women and children to leave Winnipeg, and some 70,000 people did so. Over 10,500 homes in the city were flooded. The army also drew up Operation Blackboy, a plan for a mass evacuation of the whole city if the water rose much higher. Manitobans, most of them people of modest means, gave more than half of the $10 million raised for the Manitoba Flood Relief Fund.

D. The flood changed how governments viewed the danger. A new system of dikes and pumping stations was built in Winnipeg in 1951, and in 1958 a Royal Commission recommended a channel to carry floodwater around the city. Premier Duff Roblin pushed the plan, while opponents denounced it as a ruinous waste of money and mocked it as "Duff's Ditch". The Red River Floodway was built from 1962 to 1968 for $62.7 million, with the federal government paying 60 per cent. It has protected Winnipeg in later floods such as that of 1997, and it is now recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Site.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
Some people argued that the plan for a bypass around the city would throw away public funds.

- 2.
The city's mayor was the person who asked the army to come and lead the work.

- 3.
Before that spring, Winnipeg had gone close to a hundred years without a serious flood.

- 4.
Over half of the project's cost was met by the federal government.

- 5.
Dikes in two areas of the city broke during the night after a whole day of rain.

- 6.
The winter before the flood was unusually harsh and snowy.

- 7.
Tens of thousands left the city after a military leader asked that women and children go.

- 8.
Water levels remained too high for more than seven weeks.

- 9.
People in Manitoba, many without much money, supplied most of the donations for flood victims.

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