Sinkhole season strikes Winnipeg

Pothole season ended just in time for sinkhole season to begin in Winnipeg. Roads have collapsed above two of these voids in just the last week.

A sinkhole on Inkster Boulevard, and one on St. Mathews left ominous holes in the roads. But what’s causing the cavernous craters?

“In many cases, it’s a failure in a pipe or a catch basin below the road, in many cases, it’s the aging and crumbling infrastructure, that gradually cracks and when they widen some of the material supporting the pipe gets sucked in, carried away, and that leaves a void,” explained Civil Engineer Ahmed Shalaby.

“It’s not possible to prevent all of them, but we definitely want to be ahead of that wave, and be able to replace the infrastructure before a large number of them start to occur.”

The city of Winnipeg says they don’t track sinkholes, but anecdotally, they have seen more voids and sinkholes this year, but it’s not considered out of the norm. They say the two that happened recently are in higher profile locations with more traffic interruptions, so residents took notice.

Shalaby says it’s not unusual to see sinkholes like this in Winnipeg, but as infrastructure ages, more can occur.

“Obviously it’s a safety hazard and something that needs to be addressed quickly and we’re fortunate there are no injuries, but it’s very difficult to predict where they happen, and they happen quickly, within a matter of hours or days.”

Shalaby says Manitoba sees substantial frost heave during the intense winters, and that can dislocate pipes below the roads leaving them cracked.

Intense rain events during the spring and summer can then flood the pipes and basins, eroding the underside of the road. He says heavy traffic adds to the issue, and Winnipeg has seen all of that this year.

“We’re coming off of an incredibly dry year, and actually a very dry number of years… but then we had a near record snowy winter, and near-record wet spring, so the soil conditions changed quite drastically early this year, and now that’s still lingering with a lot of frequent rainfall throughout the summer,” explained Scott Kehler, Weatherlogics.

Kehler says there is a good chance the summer remains on the wetter side, and if we see normal or even slightly below normal precipitation – this will be the wettest year on record in Winnipeg.

Shalaby says the city needs to work on replacing aging infrastructure to avoid more sinkholes in this unfavourable weather. As for drivers… Shalaby says they’re too often too abrupt to predict, so the solution is preventative measures only.