Floods Facts

Eddie Hunnell was at his son's wedding rehearsal when Hurricane Helene knocked Leslie Worth's house into the river. Worth jumped from a window in a life jacket and was swept downstream at 8 mph. He tried a canoe but couldn't fight the current, so he jumped in himself. He grabbed her life vest and held on as they drifted 600 feet to calmer water. That night, Worth joined his family for the rehearsal dinner.

Winnipeg was about to disappear under floodwater in the spring of 1997. Tens of thousands of volunteers, including students bused from their classrooms, filled more than 8 million sandbags by hand. Crews then raced to build a 26-mile wall of earth and sandbags across open farmland in just four days. The wall held, and the city stayed dry.