Clogged Halifax storm drains cause flooding headache, clearing them easier said than done

HALIFAX – Residents of Halifax are still cleaning up the remnants of mass flooding over the weekend, which was caused mainly by clogged catch basins.

The situation was so dire, the city made an appeal on Sunday for residents to help them clear out the drains.

Halifax Water spokesman James Campbell said while the underground infrastructure belongs to them, snow clearing on the street level is the city’s responsibility. Crews from both tried to clear the drains, but to no avail.

“HRM and Halifax Water have been out for days trying to get the catch basins exposed and they’ve done — for the most part — a great job,” said Campbell.

“But they were faced with the same situation everybody else does: Mother Nature decided to turn the snow into rain.”

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Some drains were covered in slush, while the exposed ones were clogged by water that froze once temperatures dropped.

“If the water is frozen, the water is frozen — even in the catch basin. Once it’s frozen in the catch basin, there’s no where for it to go,” Campbell said.

Although residents were willing to help, many expressed frustration on social media because they couldn’t find the storm drains.

Neither Halifax Water or the city would provide a list or map.

That prompted Calvin Horne to make a Google map of drains and invite others to add plots online.

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“How are we going to clear the drains if we don’t know where they are? So we kind of went on a bit of a treasure hunt as it were,” Horne said.

Within 24 hours, Horne’s map had collected more than 600 plots. He said most people are using Google Street View to locate the drains, while others are finding them from memory.

But Horne admits it’s somewhat disappointing that mapping the drains had to come from crowdsourcing.

“Honestly, it’s a little ridiculous because it is city infrastructure,” he said. “But if people are able to help, especially where emergency vehicles may be having trouble getting through, then we should be chipping in.”

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Campbell said Halifax Water does have a database of storm drains, which they are looking at and would consider releasing publicly.

“That’s something we would review,” he said.

However, he said he doesn’t suggest residents try to clear the drains at this point because it can be unsafe and there isn’t any rain in the immediate forecast.

That sentiment was echoed by Darrin Natolino, Halifax’s winter operations superintendent.

“I’m certainly not encouraging people to go out and put themselves in harm’s way to expose a catch basin,” Natolino told reporters on Monday.

“We’ll prioritize those, get to the hot lists as we can get to them but at this point there is no rain in the forecast so that concern isn’t nearly as immediate as it was yesterday.”