Lincoln, Ont. declares state of emergency after historic flooding

In the last three weeks, the Lincoln area has seen three storm events that brought a total of more than 300 millimetres of rain, and caused widespread flooding.

The town declared a state of emergency Monday, but how that will help the washed out residents and farmers is yet to be seen.

“My farm here is all underwater — it’s all underwater,” said Lincoln-area farmer John Davis. “This is going to run me into bankruptcy, and I’m a small farmer.”

Davis says he is growing peppers, and he says his ten acres are soaked.

“I plant Caribbean peppers, Scotch Bonnets and jalapeño, and all this water back up, and all my peppers are dying just because of right here,” Davis said, pointing to a flowing source of water onto his crops.

Area residents who spoke with CHCH News have different opinions on how this area flooded like this, but one thing certainly can’t be disputed: there’s a lot of water in Lincoln.

Rodney Bierhuizen, who owns Sunrise Greenhouses, said his staff are still cleaning up after the previous historic storms.

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“Lots of flooding,” said Bierhuizen. “We’ve had three flooding events in the past three weeks. You can see here we have a field that’s been washed out — we’ve had greenhouses, even crops in greenhouses that have completely been washed out the door in the past few weeks. Unprecedented flooding and just very stressful overall.”

“Everything out here was floating,” said Randy Helget, whose basement is still soaked — he managed to pump most of the water out, however he says everything that was in his basement is damaged.

“Unbelievably tragic for me — I’m not 100 per cent healthy, I’m 69-years-old, and the water that came in this time when I opened the basement door…,” said Helget. “I seen a chair that stands three feet high, with only about four inches of it exposed.”

“Alone, as of yesterday, we had the massive storm and well over 100 millimetres of rain came down, and we had about 55 reported basement flooding reports coming into the town,” said David Graham, the director of Public Works for Lincoln. “Widespread flooding across the municipality.”

Because of the unprecedented rainfall and flooding, the Town of Lincoln has declared a state of emergency.

“The resources that we have can no longer manage what’s happening and that we need outside help,” Lincoln Mayor Sandra Easton.

There’s no word yet on how the state of emergency will help property owners, who are currently underwater, but according to Davis, “it’s too late” — he doesn’t know how much of his pepper crop he’ll be able to salvage.

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