Dauphin flooding ‘as bad as I’ve ever seen it,’ mayor says as city declares local state of emergency

Dauphin’s mayor says he’s seen several major floods hit the western Manitoba city in his lifetime — but none as severe as this week’s flooding. 

“In my lifetime, there’s been four or five major floods. This is probably — from a city point of view — as bad as I’ve ever seen it in the city of Dauphin,” Mayor David Bosiak told CBC News.

On Wednesday, Dauphin declared a local state of emergency due to rapidly worsening flooding after a deluge of rain poured over the province’s Parkland region earlier this week.

The city received about 115 millimeters of rain since Sunday night — an “unprecedented volume of water,” municipal officials said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. 

Dauphin’s total rainfall for last month was just over 211 millimetres. That makes June 2026 the city’s second-wettest June on record, just below the nearly 216-millimetre record set in 1953.

And rain is expected to keep falling over Dauphin on Wednesday. A forecast from Environment and Climate Change Canada says there’s a 60 per cent chance of showers with risk of a thunderstorm in the late afternoon and early evening. 

Bosiak said the Vermillion River has likely peaked as of around noon on Wednesday, after it spilled its banks and flooded out Vermillion Park. From there, water flowed into the centre of the city and travelled toward the north end.

“The north end of the city is the lower part of our community. So it’s had the most overland flooding, basement damage,” the mayor said.

“Our crews are out dealing with some basement and street flooding in that northeast corner of the city,” he said.

Several businesses along Main Street have had their basements flooded too.

A handful of residents at an apartment building near the river have been displaced from their units, he said. Several homeowners whose electrical panels were damaged by basement flooding were also displaced. 

Bosiak said a command centre has been set up at city hall. Displaced residents can go to the Credit Union Place recreation complex. 

Many city streets are flooded and stormwater systems are overwhelmed, officials said. The Buckwold Bridge, also called the 4th Avenue SW Bridge, is closed to both pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

The city asked residents to avoid all non-essential travel and limit water usage, as local wastewater systems are under strain right now. Driving through flooded standing water can potentially worsen flooding, officials warned. 

“If you don’t need to be out, please don’t. Stay at home, look after your property, help your neighbour. But if you don’t have to leave, don’t,” Bosiak said.

“That’s our biggest concern right now. I’ll be honest, some of the people that are just driving around taking pictures and almost gawking are putting themselves and our emergency crews at risk.”

Flooding has forced the emergency department at the Dauphin Regional Health Centre to close until further notice, Prairie Mountain Health said in a social media post on Wednesday. 

Bosiak said the hospital’s loading dock, which is located at the back of the building and faces the river, was “inundated with overland flooding” that affected emergency generators located in the basement.

Shared Health said work is underway to immediately evacuate the hospital.

Officials from the province’s Emergency Management Organization were at the hospital on Wednesday, Bosiak said.

Dauphin’s state of emergency comes a day after the Rural Municipality of Dauphin, Municipality of Gilbert Plains, Municipality of Ste. Rose, Rural Municipality of Lakeshore and Mossey River Municipality all declared local states of emergency.

Dauphin officials said Wednesday’s declaration allows the city to access additional emergency resources and co-ordinate with the provincial government.

“I think the city has probably seen the worst and it will now be days, weeks, maybe longer, of cleanup,” Bosiak said.