Rain responsible for widespread flooding

The heavy rains that washed over Waterloo Region today were simply too much for our stormwater systems to handle. That led to flooding on several streets as well as some parking lots in Waterloo, where cars were damaged because the water rose above the base of the doors.

The city of Kitchener says today’s storm was a once in ten years type of event.  Engineers measured more than 35 millimetres of rain between 7:45 and 8:15 this morning.  The region has received more than 65 millimetres of rain in the past 24 hours.

David Phillips, Senior Climatologist with Environment Canada, speculates that modern living played a role in today’s end result. “I wouldn’t advertise going back to wooden sidewalks and dirt parking lots,” Phillips says. “But when you have cement and asphalt, a raindrop becomes a flood drop.”

Phillips’ theory is supported by Bob Garabaldi, Acting General Manager of Public Works Services in Waterloo. “The amount of rainfall that came down in such a short period of time, our systems are just not designed to handle that,” he tells 570 News. “In fact, you would be hard-pressed to design a system that could handle any rainfall that we could potentially receive.”

Garabaldi is hesitant to blame existing infrastructure. “The intensity of the rainfall that is coming down is just overwhelming our piping systems,” he explains. “And for that matter, it’s overwhelming our creek and ditch systems as well.”

Waterloo city councillor Mark Whaley called 570’s Gary Doyle Show to say 50-60 flooded basements had been reported to the city. “I’m sure a lot of people don’t even know their cellars are flooded because they went to work this morning.” As for Whaley, he spent his morning on a tour of affected areas, including Waterloo Park, where crews were feverishly working on the courts to get the WOW Tennis Challenge back on track.

It was a similar story in Kitchener, where Director of Engineering Grant Murphy called it an “out of the ordinary” downpour that exceeded expectations and overwhelmed some systems. “I know there was a situation down in the Walser Creek area where staff had been out to try and address a flooding condition,” Murphy says. “At this point in time, most of those situations have been addressed.”

While there’s little the city can do about the amount of rain that fell in such a short period of time, Murphy says they do learn from past experiences, such as what the city was hit with in 2008. “We had a lot of flooding in that period of time,” Murphy explains. “What we try and do is identify areas where we need to upsize or reconstruct sewer pipes or catch basins. Once we identify the problem areas, we incorporate those into our infrastructure programs for the future.”