Cole Fraser Jones had never seen Nepean almost entirely submerged underwater before Canada Day. Less than an hour into the massive rainstorm on July 1, more than five feet of water turned underpasses on Woodroffe Avenue into canals, as backed-up sewers gushed water with the intensity of a burst fire hydrant. Cars approached the road-turned-river precariously; some turned around while others bravely continued forward.
“A few people attempted to get through, and the OC Transpo buses, wisely, came completely to a halt,” said Fraser Jones, a Tanglewood resident. “I’m in a truck, and I made no attempt to get through that.”
City Identifies Most Impacted Wards
In a July 6 news conference, city staff identified Knoxdale-Merivale, College, and Bay wards as the most heavily impacted by the storm, which flooded thousands of basements across Ottawa. Many residents in these wards say infrastructure investments are long overdue, especially given it’s far from their first extreme weather event.
Three years ago, a 77-millimetre rainstorm flooded many of the same Nepean homes and streets. Four years ago, the derecho windstorm damaged thousands of houses and left many without power for days. Six years ago, Nepean homes were in the direct path of a tornado that snapped century-old trees like matchsticks and caused massive property damage.
“Why are other parts of the city faring so well, but our part just gets hit over and over?” asked Brittany Lauzon, a resident who has watched her neighbours hit hard repeatedly through wind, floods, and ice storms. “I think it’s just a lack of oversight from the city as they are developing our area more and more.”
Experts Point to Aging Infrastructure
Jennifer Drake, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering at Carleton University, said many older Ottawa neighbourhoods contain stormwater infrastructure that “predates modern drainage planning design.”
“Any development that was built before the 1980s, you have these sorts of legacy issues where the engineers hadn’t really thought about where the water was going to go in extreme weather and how it is going to move through the urban environment,” said Drake, who is also the Canada research chair of stormwater and low-impact development.
Fraser Jones, who is also running for council in Knoxdale-Merivale ward in the fall municipal election, said the repeated flooding underscores the need for upgrades. “You don’t want to deal with it until it becomes a real problem, and, unfortunately, we’re at the point where it’s become a real problem,” he said.
