For more flood photos: http://goo.gl/uBrBU For YouTube: http://goo.gl/hsNXc
April 2, 2008
NEW HAMBURG — Residents and business owners in New Hamburg spent the day cleaning up in the wake of the worst flooding to hit the town in more than two decades.
Several streets in the downtown core remained impassable this morning, choked with water and ice. Basements were inundated with as much as five or six feet of water. And a duck had taken up residence on a submerged grocery store parking lot.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Robyn Cherewka, as she waded along Jacob Street, back to her house and her water-logged basement and garage. “I felt like crying ... but what can you do?”
The Nith River peaked at around 2 a.m. with water levels higher than they’ve been since at least 1986, said Grand River Conservation Authority spokesperson Dave Schultz.
The angry river churned through town at about 350 cubic metres per second — a stunning rate, considering the summer low-flow is about 0.6 cubic metres per second.
The worst could still be yet to come in Ayr, where the Nith isn’t expected to peak until 8 p.m. tonight. Flood warnings remain in place for Ayr, New Hamburg, Wolverton and Paris and the Grand River communities of Brantford, Six Nations and Haldimand County.
“This is just the start of the spring melt season,” Schultz said. “There’s still some snow on the ground and there’s some rain in the forecast, so that could get things going again.”
In New Hamburg, the sound of portable pumps and generators buzzed through a riverside neighbourhood as Wilmot Township firefighters hauled hoses from house to house.
A sparking and smoking sump pump sent crews racing to a Grace Street home, but there was no fire.
Donna Schmidt said it’s the first time in her family’s 17 years on Jacob Street they’ve had flooding in their house — and she considered herself fortunate to have only ended up with a few inches of water. “It could have been much worse.”
At the Sobeys store, a transport truck sat marooned in the parking lot-turned-lake as bags of garden soil and mulch — just delivered yesterday — floated by.
“We come to expect it,” said Andy Koch, as he took his children Caleb and Ezra on a bicycle tour through town. “But it seems like this one caught some people by surprise.”
Wilmot’s fire chief cautioned residents to remain vigilant.
“This is something that I hope we don’t see again this year,” said John Ritz. “But it is something we could see again, and residents really need to be aware of that.”
With files from Melinda Dalton, Waterloo Region Record
