Water woes were plaguing many city residents Wednesday as they struggled with flooded basements and overflowing sewers.
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Sump pumps couldn’t keep up with the swell of rising water dumped by Tuesday’s rain on many properties, especially in the Brier Park area, leaving people rushing to shuffle belongings away from the floods.
“There was nothing we could do,” said Rick Monaghan of the flood in his back yard that poured into his Coachwood Road garage and basement.
Monaghan waded into the three-and-a-half feet of water to try and clear the catch-basin of debris.
“I kept kicking it clean and it was like a whirlpool. There were thousands of gallons of water.”
Monaghan, his wife Connie Rowley, and family members tried to slow the water bubbling up into their laundry room but it filled the basement.
“There was no way of stopping it,” Rowley said. “I’m glad we paid extra for water protection on our insurance.”
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Over on Waxwing Way, Stacey Elliott was supposed to be on her way to a cottage for the week but, instead, was cleaning up flood damage with no access to running hot water.
“Both the furnace, air-conditioner and hot-water tank took in water, so I’m cleaning with cold or boiled water at this point,” said Elliott.
She said this is the second major flood at her home and the city admitted liability after the last one.
“There’s a giant catch-basin that was overflowing at the side of the house.
“At least 25 houses in a three or four block radius here have extensive flooding because the infrastructure can’t handle the current development and they just keep building more.”
Many Brantford residents were posting photos and comments about flooding in their homes, yards or neighborhoods on social media.
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Lynden Road was temporarily flooded with some cars stranded after drivers tried to plow through the waters.
Several city streets with underpasses – including St. Paul Avenue and the aptly named Niagara Street – were temporarily flooded.
There were short power outages and at least one gas station had to stop pumping gas for a while due to the rising waters.
Meanwhile, city spokesperson Maria Visocchi said Wednesday workers are currently collecting information from those affected and dealing with receding waters.
“The above average rainfall in a very short period of time produced a significant amount of water, leading to some temporary overflow (of storm sewers) in lower lying areas of the city.
“However, once the rain stopped, the water receded from public streets and sidewalks through the storm sewers in less than half an hour.”
She said no roads were closed as a result of the weather.
According to the Grand River Conservation Authority, between 30 and 70 mm of rain hit the watershed system early Tuesday, resulting in flood warnings for the Ayr area and nearby Haldimand County that remained in place on Wednesday.
@EXPSGamble
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