Nova Scotians describe harrowing encounters, damage from historic floods

Many Nova Scotians are continuing to grapple with the fallout from a historic storm that began Friday and caused rivers to overflow, roads to wash out and homes to flood.

Kristen Murray-Martel was trying to drive from Truro, N.S., to her home in Mahone Bay during the storm on Friday night as lightning flashed and thunder crashed around her.

She stopped her car several times due to the intensity of the rain and flooded areas on Highway 103, and when she got to exit 9 near Chester, an RCMP officer warned her that conditions beyond that point were unknown, but she could proceed with caution.

Murray-Martel says in hindsight, no one should have been allowed through.

"It was insane.… I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was extremely dangerous," she says.

"The side of the highway, the ditches, were like, parts of it were turned into torrential, raging rivers, and it would cross the highway at places very unexpectedly. There was times I lost total control of the car hydroplaning and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get through. There was rocks and mud and cobble that would come up unexpectedly. It was very, very scary."

Murray-Martel didn't make it home that night because of the road conditions, but found somewhere else to stay for the night.

Truck driver Brad Peters was making a run from Moncton, N.B., to Kentville and back on Friday, a trip that normally takes about six hours. This time, it took 19 hours.

"I was the lucky one. I seen roads washed out, cars underwater, transports under water."

He says at one point along Highway 101 near exit 5, he helped first responders by allowing them to tie their rescue boat to the front of his truck so they could save some drivers.

"It was pretty crazy," he says. "This is the first time I've seen anything like this."

Rescued by boat

Payton Deeble was in her apartment on River Lane in Bedford on Friday when the storm began.

"At first it was cool. We were like, oh OK, this is a cool storm … then it just progressively got worse and worse and worse," she says.

"We looked outside a little bit later and it was like, holy crap, like, the road is flooding out."

Around 8:30 p.m., the water was up to the windshield of her car in the parking lot and the airbags had deployed. By 10 p.m., she saw firefighters wading through water up to their waists.

The first floor of the building was evacuated Friday, but Deeble, who lives on the second floor, was allowed to stay the night. The next day, she and her 80-year-old grandmother, who lives in the same building, left on a rescue boat and were taken to the comfort centre.

"It was scary. I definitely didn't experience that before.… It was a little bit nerve-racking."

Lori MacLeod-Doyle had just returned to her home in Lower Sackville on Friday evening and was relaxing, listening to the thunder.

"All of a sudden my phone started blowing up, people calling to see if I was OK, and I checked and I had two feet of water in my basement," she says. "It's just a mess. My hardwood floors are ruined, my furniture, everything is just soaked."

MacLeod-Doyle says her attitude toward the loss is that "for the most part, it's just stuff." But she did lose some items that are irreplaceable, such as her wedding album — a loss that stings even more, as her husband died a couple of years ago.

She says her heart goes out to anyone affected by Nova Scotia's recent climate disasters, including post-tropical storm Fiona, which devastated much of the province last September, the wildfires that destroyed more than 200 homes this spring, and now the floods.

"It's practically biblical. We're just waiting of the locusts now," she says.

'I got nowhere to go'

Walter Fowler, 76, lives on Union Street in Bedford, where water from the Sackville River has inundated his basement, reaching halfway up an inside basement door.

A real estate sign swings on a post outside the home — part of Fowler's plan to move to Cape Breton.

"I had a lot of dreams, but I guess they've shattered now."

Fowler says he has no power or water service at the moment, and no insurance on the home.

He says he's not sure what he'll do now.

"I'm going to stay here until I have to. What else have I got? This is all I got left.... I got nowhere to go from here."