Remembering the day Cambridge was underwater, 50 years later

Friday marks the 50th anniversary of The Great Flood that put parts of Cambridge underwater.

The Grand River spilled over its banks and flooded Galt, Riverside Park, and other areas beside the river, on May 17, 1974.

Ingrid Talpak from Cambridge recently helped to put together a historic exhibit of the flood.

“The one thing I have to tell everybody, over and over again: nobody died,” she told the Mike Farwell Show on CityNews 570.

She says it was a beautiful sunny day, and the flood caught people by surprise, despite some warnings following weeks of torrential rain upriver.

Talpak said, “By the time people heard that the flood was coming, it was already panic mode…they were already almost into it.”

She says the local fire department on that day stepped up, handling more than sixty emergency calls in 24 hours, saying “they were on the ball, they knew what they were doing, and lives were saved.”

The most famous photo of the Great Flood shows police constable John Shuttleworth, in full uniform in water up to his waist, standing outside a drug store, arms folded across his chest while he maintains his post.