It’s been a wet 24 hours for residents living along Lake Ontario near Bowmanville. On Thursday, an all-day flood event saw waters gushing onto their properties, and at some points bubbling up into their homes.
“We had more than two and a half inches of water in our basement,” says Gord Giffin.
His family and people living in flood-prone homes were preparing for the worst over the past few months, shoring up their properties with sandbags. But Giffen says even that could not shield them from Mother Nature’s fury.
WATCH: (Nov. 27, 2017) Flood-risk assessment pilot project comes to Bowmanville
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“As much as we have sandbags to protect below, the waves were coming up and hitting our deck, the windows on the top of our deck,” says Giffin.
Joanne Ford, who has lived along Cedar Crest Beach for a number of years, said the waves came “very, very quickly.”
“We were getting much more water than even in 2017,” says Ford.
She says that at one point during the storm, the force of the waves even moved an armour stone, meant to wall off impending floodwaters. Now it sits in the water.
“We were a lot better prepared for it this time,” says Giffin. “But for the water splashing and winds, it’s hard to be completely prepared.”
For the past few weeks, residents, volunteers and members of the Clarington Fire Department have been filling sandbags, as the region still sits under a flood warning.
Flood events in this region are all too familiar to people living here. Dozens of people had to leave their homes in 2017. Now, facing a second event in recent years, residents like Ford say something more has to be done.
“We need to have something that is going to stop the wave energy that is coming from the lake, and stop these massive waves.”
The region remains under a flood warning as officials say the water levels are still above average.
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