THUNDER BAY — Significant flooding impacted several homes and businesses early Sunday morning in the Fort Wiliam Road area.
On Monday the road was reduced to a single lane of traffic in each direction between First Avenue and Water Street and motorists are encouraged to avoid the area.
City staff believe a water main break caused the flooding, with water covering much of the largely residential First Avenue, parts of Ontario Street and the area around the Roots Community Food Centre and Moose Hall on Sunday.
A high water line could be seen more than a foot up the fence of one home on Ontario Street.
The cause of the break was unknown as of Monday morning with city workers still investigating.
"Our staff were working through the night to get that section isolated and get the leak under control. We have crews on site today to locate the source of the leak and excavate and repair," said David Warwick, the superintendent for water distribution and wastewater collection in an interview Monday morning.
While under control now, he added the storm sewer lift station will still be working to drain the area and pump everything up into the floodway.
First Avenue resident Dean Hauth said he was awoken around 5 a.m by a neighbour alerting him to the flooding.
Although water levels were brought under control, Hauth has ongoing concerns about the maintenance and monitoring of the floodway, which runs near his home.
"As we started talking to other neighbours and looking around and realizing the massive scope of this, there seems to be more at play than just a broken water main here," said Hauth.
Hauth said he and his family have dealt with flooding in the neighbourhood several times before and feels there's a lack of attention paid to the conditions in the floodway: “nobody’s paying attention.”
“You just have to stop and look. I mean you can see it’s full of water. It’s February. There should be no water in there. There’s been no melting. There’s been no rain or precipitation,” he added.
“So that spillway should be empty and it’s overflowing and it’s flowing into the neighbourhood surrounding houses and destroying property.”
He wants to see the city check the water levels in the floodway frequently, every other day and make physical infrastructure improvements.
“The spillway needs to be deeper, wider and the culverts need to be improved that go under Fort William Road. There needs to be a greater water flow. The last five years they’ve had to come every year and dig the ice off the spillway to prevent the neighbourhood from flooding completely so there needs to be a permanent solution," said Hauth.
The city already has good monitoring, said Warwick. He said the Bare Point Water Treatment Plant detects large breaks. In this case, the system notified the city the plant was losing capacity and they dispatched staff to locate the issue.
The water main was built around 1960s, said Warwick, but said it was too early to say whether the age of the infrastructure was a factor in the leak.
Erin Beagle, the executive director at the Roots Community Food Centre, came to work at 10 a.m. Sunday to find city vehicles at the centre.
“What they told me was a water main had broken and really done a lot of water on First Avenue and all through here and they were still looking for the source of it at that point,” said Beagle.
“Only our dining room has been affected, but water came right in and just sort of washed all over the dining room,” she added.
Beagle said their insurance company acted quickly and sent an contractor to clean up inside. Roots also had the parking lot plowed for the safety of people walking in.
“We really want to limit how much damage happens to the building because of moisture and water, because there’s a lot of things that happen here like tomorrow, we’re running an all-day ID clinic so people can come in and get replacement birth certificates and on Wednesday we have our senior’s meal,” said Beagle.
She added they are quite hopeful that by Wednesday, when they’re doing a meal again, it will be no problem and everybody will be welcome.
“We love our building and we just need to make sure that it is still in good order for the community to come and use,” said Beagle.
If residents in the area experience discoloured water or a decrease in water pressure during the repair process, the city recommends running a cold water tap as close to the water meter as possible for approximately 10 to 15 minutes or until the water runs clear.
