The Reeve for the R.M. of Morris says the confirmation of a 2022 Disaster Financial Assistance (DFA) program is welcome and necessary. Ralph Groening noted, the Municipality will be submitting an application to the program.

"Our infrastructure damage is significant," he said. "We don't yet have any idea of what the dollar value will be, but we know that there culvert washouts, road washouts, there are roads that are closed that we know will have significant damage and there was, as always in a flood, there is debris that will require a major clean up."

Currently, the Municipality is trying to formulate a plan to identify the affected sites.

"What we're looking at right now is to use some drone footage," explained Groening. "We're talking to some drone business operators to see what would be reasonable to provide us with, first of all, a preliminary view of what we do have to anticipate for repairs and then as the waters go down, you can truly begin to see what damage you have."

There is no doubt in Groening's mind that the total damage sustained in the unexpected spring flood will be significant. 

"This is going to be a 2022 summer project that will take a lot of the energy and all of the resources and witts that we have to begin and repair. We hope we will be able to complete this work by the fall of this year."

In the past, DFA programs have allowed municipalities to hire contractors to do a majority of the repair work, and Groening said the R.M. of Morris will certainly take advantage of that if it is part of the latest program. 

"We can't possibly do all of this on our own, and I don't believe the Province expects that so, we will be using outside contractors," he explained.