Heavy rain floods homes, washes over curbs

The city of Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario is drying out after a heavy downpour caused flooding in some areas of the city on Saturday.

Kerri Marshall, the city's general manager of infrastructure and operations, said preliminary data from the Lakehead Region Conservation Authority showed up to 92 millimetres of rain fell on the city over the course of Saturday.

Knee-deep water covered some roads, washing over curbs, and outdoor events scheduled for Saturday were moved indoors or postponed. Residents in some city neighbourhoods — such as Northwood and Intercity — saw their basements and yards flooded.

Bay Street area resident Audrey Debruyne found herself cleaning up water in her basement during Saturday's storm.

Debruyne said about two centimetres of water covered her basement floor during the rainfall, but didn't cause any real damage.

"It's just some old furniture that isn't worth a lot," she said of her basement's contents. "It's just being upset by the situation, but I guess there might be some other people more affected by that."

Like 2012 storm, but not as damaging

While the scene Saturday evening was reminiscent of the major flood the city experienced in 2012 — which led Thunder Bay to declare a state of emergency — this weekend's flooding wasn't nearly as damaging or widespread.

"We had a total of about 230 calls through our dispatch centre," Marshall said. "Those calls were largely related to surface and basement flooding. Of these calls, approximately 20 were reports of sewer backup, and about 80 were reports of water in the basement."

The remainder of the calls were related to surface flooding on the roadway, he said.

Marshall said the water levels didn't cause any serious damage to city infrastructure. The city's water treatment plant performed as it should have, Marshall said, despite the increased water flows.

The plant was overhwelmed in 2012 when water flows exceeded its capacity. It was reported at the time that about 70 millimetres of rain fell in a two-hour period.

Crews inspecting damage

City crews are still patrolling and inspecting ditches and roadways and performing repairs as needed. Some damage won't be repaired until Monday.

"Reports of concerns by residents are far lower than what we experienced in 2012," Marshall said.

Northwood Councillor Shelby Ch'ng said this morning she received several calls from Northwood residents in the aftermath of Saturday night's storm.

"There's a lot of phone calls," she said. "Northwood Mall was completely flooded."

"The power's out at my house, my backyard is flooded."

The city continues to undertake projects to upgrade its stormwater handling capacity. A $1.5-million upgrade to Northwood's stormwater infrastructure was recently approved by council, for example.

"We need to keep going," Ch'ng said. "My hope is that once we get caught up with what we need to do, these types of events will be easily absorbed into our system."

Both Ch'ng and Marshall encouraged anyone who's experienced water-related damage to call the city's dispatch line at 625-2195.