Hundreds of homes across Burlington have been damaged or flooded by the storms this week, and it isn’t the first time some communities have seen the city’s infrastructure fail them.
Residents of Tyandaga Park Drive have seen three major floods in the last 18 years, with damages from this week ranging from five centimetres to more than a metre of water in their basements.
“The adjuster came yesterday and said we have coverage for $50,000,” Kevin McMahon, a resident affected by the flood, said. “He said it’s gonna cost way more than that, so $100,000 maybe? The basement's completely toast. Our furnace, treadmill, the whole gym, all the floor, all the furniture, Playstation, home theater system, everything.”
Kevin carried ruined furniture and electronics out of his home and onto his yard to clear out the damaged property.
Between 50 and 80 millimetres of rain fell in around an hour on Monday, July 15, causing flooding across roads, creeks and sewers. Several roads were closed due to water pooling on the street, and the stress on the city’s sewer systems from the rain caused sewage to flood into homes.
Tyandaga Park Drive has been under construction for several years as the city is replacing water mains in the area, though some residents are upset that the city chose not to update the sewage system in the neighborhood as well, which could have compounded the problem.
“It’s very frustrating,” one resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. “The whole neighbourhood has been getting new streets. New paving, sidewalks, everything, but from what we’ve been told, we might be the only street that didn’t get new sewers.”
Kevin’s parents, Maureen and Bryan McMahon, also live in the neighbourhood and had sewage flood into their home, but it isn’t the first time they’d experienced such a disaster since moving to the area.
“The first one was 18 years ago, when we had just moved in,” Maureen, who lives at Wakefield Crescent nearby, said. “We lost our sofas, the carpeting, we’d just moved in so we had photographs and pictures absolutely ruined because it’s sewage water. A few years later, another flood, same thing. So now we’re at the point when they’re telling me that it’s sewage water again, and we have to fix it all again. Are we going to have that rain next week? Next month? They fix the water pipes but they don’t fix the sewage.”
Several residents were outside in the morning dealing with the aftermath of the flooding, with some visibly distraught at the damage, and one family had moved into the area just three weeks ago.
Despite the damages, Kevin is hoping to keep his head held high.
“It’s not been great, obviously, but all my wife and I can do is laugh about it,” he said. “You know, no one's dead, no one got injured. It's just stuff, it can be replaced. It's a lot, though, it's tough. We've got dogs. We both have jobs and we're both kind of scrambling to figure this all out. And of course it won't stop raining, but we'll figure it out.”
Burlington City Council compared this week’s storm to the floods of 2014, which also badly affected the Tyandaga community, and are holding a special council meeting on Friday, July 19 to provide verbal updates on the extent of the damages across the city.
