TORONTO – While Mayor Rob Ford praised the city for having “weathered the storm” – the greatest single-day rainfall in Toronto history – an environmental engineer says years of inadequate planning left the city’s infrastructure overwhelmed in the deluge.
Approximately 126 mm of rain fell in Toronto during Monday’s storm, causing widespread flooding throughout the city and beating the previous record of 121 mm set during Hurricane Hazel in October 1954.
“What occurred over a few short hours last night was unprecedented. I’m extremely proud of our hard working staff who worked tirelessly through the night to restore service and ensure the safety of our residents,” Mayor Rob Ford said at a press conference on Monday. “Once again Toronto has persevered. We have weathered the storm.”
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But according to one environmental engineer, the flooding was worsened because of infrastructure that can’t handle this type of short, intense and isolated storm.
“Up until about 1970 when they designed the city, they put the sewers in for little events but they didn’t plan for these things right,” said Tim Mereu, water resources engineer and VP of environmental services with MMM Group. “So now, as we’ve been getting some more intense storms, we’re starting to see sort of the weak points.”
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The Don Valley Parkway is one of those weak points. The expressway flooded quickly on Monday, and was closed by the city around 7 p.m.. And nearby a GO Train was flooded, stranding upwards of 1400 people for several hours.
The expressway was built in a natural catchment area, Mereu said.
“The road has been built in the flood plain. I would expect, if there wasn’t a road there, I would expect to see that flooding every two, three, four, five years anyways,” He said. “So really, it’s just totally natural that it would flood there.”
Related: Special weather statement once again issued for GTA: More rain in the forecast
Mereu said if the DVP were built again today, it would not be placed in the Don Valley but up the hill closer to Don Mills.
The DVP flooded after a heavy rainfall in May. there’s not much the city can do to prevent further flooding, Mareu said, apart from building a better warning system.
Building a flood wall, diverting the river or moving the road are either dangerous or impractical, he said.
While the DVP is bound to flood again, Mereu said city officials should look elsewhere in the city to find areas that could be dangerous to residents during further flooding – specifically under bridges.
And city manager Joe Pennachetti said the city is making changes to further development thanks to a city staff report that examined the risks to city infrastructure as a result of worsening storms.
“In that study we were flagged with ‘this will become more frequent,’” Pennachetti said. But he compared the city’s response Monday favourably with that of a 2005 flood, when a portion of Finch Avenue washed away after a heavy rainfall.
“I think we have made major strides relative to all areas including transportation, water and sewer, the parks and recreation. We are now going out into the parks, now we weren’t there last night, to see what if any damage was there.”
The city is also spending $2.75 billion on infrastructure improvements over 10 years.
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