Winds whip up worry along Lake Manitoba

People living on the shores ofLake Manitoba wokeup to another wind warning on Thursday.

CindyClarksontold CBC News she waswatching waves crash on the rocks outside her Delta Beach cottage.

Well, it's going to certainly give our rocks a test, she said.

• High winds to raise water levels on lakes, province warns

Under the jokes there is concern, however.The area was battered in 2011 when high waves smashed into homes.

The lake is still recovering from the record high levels of that year, which were caused by a delugeoffloodwater fromfurther south. The province, worried about theswollenAssiniboineRiver causing damage to heavily-populated areas, including Winnipeg, used thePortage Diversion to redirect great amounts of the floodwaternorth to the lake.

As a result, the lake level rose significantly, making it extremely dangerous during windstorms. On several occasions, the wind whipped up violent waves and pushed the water far inland.

• Frustration mounts along Lake Manitoba

Nearly 2,000 people were forced from their homes and cottages and an estimated 700 properties destroyed.

Clarkson said it is still a stressfultime whenever the winds pick up. Andon Wednesday night, a howling north wind waspushing the water towards cottages there.

"Emotionally it's unbelievable. I mean, we could be in the same situation as 2011," she said.

"We have all worked really hard, we've spent the last two years trying to recover."

The province is applying to the federal government to open a channel at Lake St.Martin to lower the Lake Manitoba levels but Clarkson worries that process both bureaucratically and operationally, once the channel is open could take too long to bring those levels down.