Clean-up continues after heavy floods affected Burlington streets

The clean-up continues after heavy floods affected streets and homes in our region this week. The city of Burlington has declared a level-two state of emergency to deal with this.

Mayor of Burlington Marianne Meed Ward said, “I don’t know what you’re going through. I have to say that this is absolutely devastating for you. We experienced that flood too but nothing like what you have. My heart goes out to all of you.”

Meed Ward spoke with residents of Cavendish Drive today who say over the past 2 days their street was flooded twice.

One of the homeowners, Azra Smith, said, “I yelled to my daughters who were inside to start getting stuff from the basement because water is coming in and it’s coming in fast.”

Residents say on Monday the creek that runs near their homes overflowed, and then that evening they started to notice a berm, or large strip of land, on Highway 407 was beginning to fail.

Today, Burlington’s Director of Roads, Parks and Forestry, Enrico Scalera, says the berm did fail and clog the drain that runs under the 407 causing even more flooding.

Scalera said, “There’s an inlet on the 407 they are working on right now, slowly removing debris. They have assured me they’re going to work overnight to get the water down as soon as possible.”

Residents are frustrated something wasn’t done sooner.

Cavendish Drive wasn’t the only area affected by flooding.

Kelly Bowen lives on Willowbrook Road. Her basement and backyard were completely flooded, now caked in mud with almost everything destroyed.

She was working to salvage family DVDs today, but not everything could be saved.

Parts of Hamilton saw flooding as well, roads in Toronto were covered, as well as basements, including Canadian rapper Drake’s mansion.

An insurance expert with rates.ca says with extreme weather becoming more common, homeowners should be proactive about their coverage.

That’s exactly what some of the residents on Cavendish Drive are worried about. Can they stay in their homes? Are they going to have the coverage for all the damage?

Mayor Marianne Meed Ward says the city is working to figure out if there were any infrastructure issues that made the flooding worse. They will be discussing the flood in a special city council meeting this Friday.