Jennifer Chrysler-Loney, her husband and her 12-year-old son were dealing with water pouring into their south St. Catharines, Ont., home from a storm pounding the area when a tornado warning lit up their phones. Chrysler-Loney and her son grabbed the family dog, batteries, chargers and flashlights, intending to rush to the basement for shelter, when she looked out the bay window in their kitchen overlooking the towering Niagara Escarpment her home backs on to. The window imploded on us. It was horrendous. It was just chaos.- Jennifer Chrysler-Loney, St. Catharines resident “The floor of the escarpment was flattening,” she told . “It was like a tsunami coming down the escarpment. It was barrelling towards our house.” They desperately tried to hold back the floodwaters that filled the window well and poured into the house, dumping buckets of water into sinks. But the force of the massive wall of water was too much. “The window imploded on us,” Chrysler-Loney said. “It was horrendous. It was just chaos. “It was like Niagara Falls. There was no holding it back.” Seeing the vast amounts of water pour in was surreal for the family. “It’s like standing out in the street and watching our house burn,” said Chrysler-Loney.
‘A lot of panic, followed by stages of grief’
The shock is being felt across the city, which experienced massive flooding along with neighbouring Niagara-on-the-Lake from a July 28 storm. Then, St. Catharines was hit again, on the weekend, prompting a state of emergency. St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe hasn’t just watched the crisis unfold for others: his home was flooded in the first storm, and on Sunday night, it was again overwhelmed with water and sewage shooting up from a drain like a geyser. “It’s a lot of panic, followed by stages of grief,” Siscoe told a Tuesday news conference about the first flooding. On Sunday, foul sewer water once again bubbled up into his home, this time even worse. “You just feel defeated,” he said. St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe said the flooding has hit thousands of homes. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) Siscoe, who declared a state of emergency Monday, said some residents have had their homes flooded three times in two weeks after storms on July 21, 27 and 28 dumped almost 400 millimetres of rain on St. Catharines. “I recognize the exhaustion and the uncertainty, the emotional toll that this is taking on folks in our community and their families.” The heavy rain saturated the ground, creeks overflowed, catch basins swelled and sewers simply unable to push through water fast enough backed up into residences. Siscoe said the flooding has hit thousands of homes.
Residents clear out damaged furniture and belongings from their basements after flooding hit homes in the city’s north end. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
“I’ve driven through entire neighbourhoods where every single house was dealing with it, and that was [before] Sunday night. There are entire neighbourhoods where the driveways are filled with construction debris and furniture that’s been destroyed.
“There were cars floating down the street.”
Every worker in his office has had their homes flooded, and most of them will need basement tear-outs, said Siscoe.
Dave Upper, chief of the St. Catharines fire department, told reporters Tuesday that firefighters had to pull off a dramatic rescue on Sunday when several cars with people inside got stranded in deep, flooding water on Ontario Street in front of a park. Over the course of the two storms, firefighters were also swamped with calls from people facing problems such as their homes’ electrical systems short-circuiting.
“I’ve been here for over 30 years now and in my career, I’ve never seen this happen,” Upper said. ‘We’ve had flooding we’ve never seen before in the city.”
Highrise tenants evacuated a 2nd time
Those displaced by the flooding include hundreds of people at a highrise on Geneva Street. They were evacuated a week ago when the building’s power and water were knocked out. Robert Burke said he and other tenants were finally let back into their homes on Friday night, but evacuated again on Sunday night. Upper said his department worked with the Red Cross and the City of Niagara Falls to get shelter for the Geneva Street building’s tenants at the MacBain Community Centre in Niagara Falls. Mitch St. Hilaire said his mother’s and stepdad’s home in the Port Weller neighbourhood was flooded “catastrophically” on June 28 and again Sunday night. He sent CBC photos of the basement showing it with high levels of dark brown fluid. “To experience two catastrophic floods within five days is something none of us ever imagined possible,” he said. St. Hilaire said he was unable to help because he’s in Tokyo. “[It ]makes this particularly anguishing for me as I watch helplessly.” Siscoe said many people might be questioning the city’s infrastructure or wondering whether blockages or other problems caused the flooding. But he noted that the city has tripled its spending on wastewater infrastructure in recent years, and doubted if any city system in Canada could have handled that much rain. “It’s just not possible.” Siscoe is calling on the Ontario and federal governments to provide St. Catharines with immediate assistance, and help communities pay for upgrading critical stormwater infrastructure to better prepare for such devastating storms.
St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe, who also spoke to reporters on Tuesday, wants the Ontario and federal governments to provide the city with immediate assistance and help communities pay for upgrading critical stormwater infrastructure. (Diona Macalinga/CBC)
On Sunday night, Siscoe posted a video of his flooded basement on Facebook, saying “a hurricane’s worth” of rain fell that night alone.
“There has been no disaster relief assistance offered by either the provincial or the federal government,” he said.”The city has been left to fend for itself.”
The nearby Town of Lincoln was also hit hard with flooding, prompting another state of emergency, this one declared by Mayor Sandra Easton.
Niagara Centre riding MPP Jeff Burch wrote to Siscoe on Tuesday, urging him to work with Niagara Region to extend temporary, unlimited garbage pickup — put in place until Aug. 14 due to the flooding — to the entire city, saying many south-end homes were also drenched.
Burch said he’ll also meet with Municipal Affairs Minister Rob Flack to discuss the province’s Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians program for Niagara.
The program pays up to $250,000 to people, farmers, small businesses and non-profit agencies for emergency expenses, repairs and replacing essential property after natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, landslides and earthquakes. It generally doesn’t cover damage from sewer backups, except for a provision in which low-income households may qualify.
Michael Minzak, issues manager and press secretary for Flack, said in a statement Monday that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is working with the City of St. Catharines to assess storm-related damage and determine whether there are any areas affected by overflowing creeks, rivers or lakes where uninsured damage could be eligible for assistance under the program.
He also said Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response officials are assessing a request for help from the city “to determine appropriate provincial resources to assist.”
With rain forecast for seven more consecutive days in St. Catharines starting Thursday, Siscoe said it’s understandable many people are on edge about how much the infrastructure can handle.
“We understand that residents are anxious when rain is forecast,” he said. “We recognize that confidence has been shaken.”
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