Central N.L. towns rally to help repair broken communities

The recovery work is well underway after Central Newfoundland was walloped with record amounts of rainfall overnight Monday.

The first full day after the storm was marked by bridges being repaired and new concerns about the potential remnants of Hurricane Nicole hitting the province this weekend. 

• After 2 frantic days, life slowly returns to normal in many Newfoundland towns

• On the brink: Gander facing water outage as lake continues to rise

Norris Arm

Greg Higgens is a lifelong resident of Norris Arm, where a gigantic gash cut streets in half.

"I was asleep and my buddy phoned me and he said, 'You know you're flooded out,' and I said, 'no.' 

"Then I just took off outdoors and I saw the water coming around both sides of the house. It was about foot-high on the lawn there," Higgens told CBC News on Tuesday. 

"There was water rushing between my house and my shed. That's what did most of the damage." 

His backyard is a complete washout, with trees ripped from the ground and washed into the Exploits River.

Alonzo McDonald said he's seen floods in Norris Arm before but never like this.

"We had a big blast of water come by, with a lot of lakes and ponds up there," said McDonald. "And it got to the point where it came down, and trees came down with it and plugged it all up."

Once the culvert was plugged, it overflowed and started racing towards Higgens' home. McDonald said the town dug a hole near the plugged culvert that caused the road to collapse. 

"When will this be fixed? It's hard to say," said McDonald. "It's happened before, but this is the worst."

McDonald called the flooding "absolutely devastating."

Brown's Arm

People in Brown's Arm looking to buy groceries had to line up at their bridge and be escorted across one at a time on foot in order to leave town.

The storm left a gaping hole on the bridge that connects Brown's Arm to a road leading to Lewisporte. 

It was washed out Monday night and it took close to a dozen dump trucks emptying countless loads at a landfill under the bridge to open a single lane to vehicle traffic on Tuesday night.

David Segee lives in Brown's Arm and walked across the bridge with his family so they could buy necessities in Lewisporte. 

"Groceries, medical supplies for my mom and stuff like that," said Segee. "We have my 90-year-old mother living with us so it makes it kind of hard to get back into town."

Before walking across, his family handed out water bottles to the people fixing the bridge. 

"It's just unbelievable devastation," said Segee. "I'm so sorry for people that lost their homes and stuff like that and I pray for them."