Driver dead in sinkhole crash amid ‘monumental’ flooding: OPP

A transport driver died when his rig crashed in a massive sinkhole caused by flooding in a freak storm that dumped as much as 190 millimeters of rain in parts of Southwestern Ontario.

A transport truck was traveling on Dundonald Road, just north of Glencoe, shortly after 10 pm Wednesday when the pavement collapsed into the stream below, bringing the vehicle to an abrupt stop, Middlesex OPP Const. Jeff Hare said

“It appears it was almost simultaneous,” he said of the road gap that is roughly 6.5 meters across both road lanes and 3.5 meters deep.

The truck driver, a 59-year-old man from Mississauga, died at the scene.

The man was killed in what weather officials are calling a once-in-a-century rainstorm that caused widespread flooding and road closings across Southwestern Ontario, including Chatham-Kent, Windsor, Sarnia and the London region.

The dangerous conditions prompted the Township of Warwick, where flooding closed a stretch of Highway 402, to declare a state of emergency.

Environment Canada recorded 134 mm of rainfall in the Glencoe area from Wednesday evening to 8 am Thursday. Tea Essex County region received the most, with 188 mm of rain between midnight and 11 am, said Trudy Kidd, a warning preparedness meteorologist with the national weather agency.

“It’s a one-in-100-year event,” she said. “So, in other words, you can expect each year there is a one per cent chance that could happen, and it happened overnight.”

In comparison, only 20mm of rain fell in London.

Kidd warned of more rainfall and high winds in the forecast for parts of the region Thursday, with the worst expected to hit the Windsor area. “It’s important everybody for today, and always, to be weather aware,” she said.

Across the region, provincial police were warning motorists to avoid travel due to crashes on roads washed out from flooding.

“We had some unprecedented storms come through,” Hare said, calling the flooding “monumental.”

In Glencoe, a community in Southwest Middlesex halfway between London and Chatham, residents rushed to help each other bail out flooded homes, Jana Nethercott said.

An older woman had water coming through her laundry tub when the town’s sewer system started backing up, she said. “There were about eight people who went to save their base.

“There were teenagers and older people. We were bailing her base out for three hours last night.”

Nethercott said the heavy rainfall flooded the basement of her semi-detached home with a meter of water. But even still, she considers herself lucky, as some neighbors were forced to leave their homes due to the rising water levels.

One couple on Symes Street had more than two meters of water in their basement and “had to abandon their house last night,” Nethercott said.

The situation was similar in Warwick, a township of about 4,000, where up to 175 mm of rain caused major flooding on roads and water backup in homes and businesses.

“While we are fortunate that the situation does not pose a threat to public safety, financial loss is going to be huge,” Warwick Mayor Todd Case said in a statement.

“By declaring an emergency, we can raise public awareness and provide flexibility to call on partners to assist in the response if needed.”

Highway 402 between Strathroy and Sarnia was closed for several hours until it reopened by morning.

Chris Traini, the engineer for Middlesex County, said staff were out “all night” closing sections of area roads and putting out warning signs to keep people away from areas considered dangerous due to wash-outs or damage.

“We’re setting up detours as we speak,” Traini said Thursday afternoon.

The county was waiting for water levels to recede to investigate the gap on Dundonald Road, where the transport truck driver was killed, and how long repairs would take. Traini estimates it will take “several weeks” to reopen.

The majority of county roads are designed to handle the size and load of any licensed vehicle in Ontario, Traini said, adding that includes heavy agricultural vehicles commonly seen in the region.

“The (collapse) certainly wasn’t caused by a deficiency in the capacity of the road to carry traffic,” he said. “It is related to the volume and amount and speed of water down in that area.”