A house just north of Winnipeg was flooded out Friday morning and people were scrambling to save others.

It happened on Breezy Point Road in the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews when the Red River breached the dikes, said Darcy Hardman, emergency co-ordinator for the area.

An ice jam has forced the river up and over the banks.

Crews prepare to set up tiger-tube dikes at a home on Breezy Point Road. Meaghan Ketcheson/CBC

"We started at 10 or 11 o'clock last night and the water came up very close to the house," he said. "We proceeded to put up mini tiger tubes and piled them up, and about [8 a.m.] it got to the top of the dike and our fight couldn't keep up with seeping water."

The ice jam is also causing problems in St. Clements, across the river from Breezy Point Road.

St. Clements Mayor Steve Strang said crews are now putting tiger-tube dikes in place. The dikes are 15-metre-long tubes filled with water and strung together or stacked.

"We have some [places] where the water's encroaching within a few feet from the homes and we just want to make sure they stay safe," he said.

Breezy Point Road, also known as Provincial Road 320, was closed Friday after being washed over by the swollen river. The closure extends for 11 kilometres, north of Highway 4.

On April 12, 2009, ice jams caused extensive damage when the fast-flowing Red River slammed into metre-thick ice, then jumped the banks. The flash flood shoved large chunks of ice into riverfront properties in both the rural municipalities of St. Andrews and St. Clements.

The Manitoba government bought out more than 40 homes in the northern portion of Breezy Point after the 2009 flood. Those homes were on Crown land that had been leased.

However, some homeowners on privately owned land have remained.

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