Canada Day storms flood homes and leave thousands without power

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Meanwhile, at Cornerstone Housing for Women’s emergency shelter in Ottawa’s west end, staff confined residents in their rooms as crews cleaned up the damage caused by floodwater that seeped through the building Wednesday afternoon.

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“It flooded the middle of our kitchen area where we have our dining space where people eat or just connect,” said Amber Bramer, Cornerstone’s director of development and communications. “At the bottom of our stairs, there was a big pool of water.”

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Staff asked residents to remain upstairs after several people slipped while walking through the water. City crews arrived later in the evening to help remove standing water, while the shelter also temporarily lost power and its elevator stopped working.

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Bramer said one resident with mobility challenges had to sleep on a cot in a basement room because she could not access her unit until the elevator was restored.

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While most of the main floor had been cleaned by Thursday, Bramer said the storm damaged mattresses that the organization had to throw out. It also soaked personal protective equipment and files. A garden and outdoor gathering area were also flooded.

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“As an emergency shelter, we’re prepared for emergencies with residents, but not always for environmental emergencies,” Bramer said. “It’s definitely something that we need to further look at for the risks.”

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Bramer said the shelter expects it will take at least a week or two to replace damaged supplies and is encouraging monetary donations, which allow the organization to purchase items such as replacement mattresses through existing community partnerships.

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At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Ottawa Mayor Sutcliffe described Wednesday’s storm as one of the city’s most significant flooding events in recent memory.

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“In a short period of time, we received twice the record amount of rainfall for July 1, doubling the record set in 1959,” Sutcliffe said. “We believe this was one of the worst flooding events in our city in the last 25 years.”

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Sutcliffe said the city received more than 1,900 reports of flooded basements through 311 by Thursday afternoon, though he expects that number will continue to climb as residents work through the damage and report it to the city.

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Mark Fraser, who lives in Graham Park in Ottawa’s west end, said his house and virtually all of the houses on his street had flooded basements to some degree. He had a foot of water in his basement, he said.

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“We just got the diagnosis,” Fraser said. “We need a new furnace and a new hot water heater.”

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He said he was just glad that he didn’t lose more to the flood.

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Because of the widespread flooding, Ottawa companies that do remediation and clean-up were swamped with calls Thursday.

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Destiny Dionne, the administrative assistant for the east-end Ottawa company Enviro Pure First Response, said she received more than 50 calls Thursday, mostly from residents with flooded basements.

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Her six crews were all out at jobs, and callers were either added to a waiting list or referred to other companies, Dionne said.

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“We are at maximum capacity right now,” she said.

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Flooding, she said, took place all over Ottawa, although many calls to her company came from the west end. She said she heard from homeowners with as much as five to six feet of water in their basements.

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City officials also urged residents unable to get through to 311 because of high call volumes to report flooded basements through their My ServiceOttawa account online instead.