Watermain break floods St. Catharines neighbourhood ahead of town hall

St. Catharines residents say they’re worn out after weeks of flooding.

Then, on Tuesday, residents in the Grantham neighbourhood woke up to a river running down their street.

“The water has been running for three hours. My brand new driveway, that’s less than a year old, has dropped two inches below the curb. So now my entire driveway has to be plowed out,” says one resident.

Unwelcome deja-vu for residents whose homes were flooded just a few weeks ago.

“I’m not happy. I had water in my basement twice, water in my street. I’m not happy. I’m not a happy person right now. I really just want to leave St. Catharines, to be honest with you,” the resident says.

“Again, my first reaction is going downstairs, making sure I don’t have water. ‘Cause I’m just cleaning up and I don’t want to go through it again for the third time. It’s just not right,” says another resident.

Meanwhile post-flood clean-up in St. Catharines is now in its fourth week.

“We’re about 70 per cent of the way through remediating the homes we have on our vulnerable assistance registry. Team Rubicon and Samaritan’s Purse continue to do good work there over the last couple of weeks and we anticipate it will be several more weeks before we get things wrapped up,” says St. Catharines Fire Chief, Dave Upper.

This week St. Catharines City Council unanimously voted in favour to expand its flood alleviation program — reallocating city funds to meet the unprecedented number of applications.

“We’ve put $20 million aside now, so that should be good for up to 4000 applications,” says St. Catharines Mayor, Mat Siscoe. “We’re hoping residents have patience. The important thing last night is that people can do the work and it may take time but they can feel comfortable that the dollars do exist to fund everyone who is applying.”

But residents near Neptune Drive say it’s not enough.

“We are banding together and trying to help one another but, to see this infrastructure [fail] here, after everything we’ve experienced this month, it’s really disheartening and it brings up a lot of questions,” says a resident.

“What I’ve seen from the last three weeks, it doesn’t cut with me. I’m sorry,” says another resident.

While the city’s enhanced curbside waste collection ended as of Aug. 22.

However residents affected by flooding can receive targeted collection services by registering with the city by this Friday at noon.

Tuesday evening, the City of St. Catharines is hosting a telephone town hall, starting at 7 p.m.

The city says those who signed up for the call list will receive a call. Those who didn’t sign up may still hear from the city Tuesday night.

For the latest information on the City’s flood response and recovery efforts visit the dedicated webpage.

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