Burlington residents deal with flooding

Some residents in a Burlington townhouse complex say they stress out every time it begins to pour down rain. That’s because some of them have had their basements flood as many as four times in the last seven years. Most recently, their basements flooded during Tuesday’s downpour. Some residents feel both the city of Burlington and the Halton Region are doing little to help them.

The residents we spoke with today say because their basements have flooded so many times, some insurance companies won’t even insure their basements anymore or their insurance companies have raised deductibles to as high as 5 thousand dollars.

Burlington residents took a video of their basements flooding for the fourth time in seven years. Contaminated water that destroys whatever it touches.

Christine Kupkee has been flooded out 4 times: “Sewage, raw sewage, the first time there was stuff floating around that shouldn’t have been. It was pretty disgusting. I’ve lost a couch, all kinds of furniture, things I can’t replace like stuffed toys my parents kept from when I was little.”

Halton region says it’s looking into it.

David Andrews is Director of Waste Water Services with Halton: “We’re still conducting an investigation to identify the exact cause of the backflow. Is this an infrastructure problem? No, it is not.”

In the last seven years, Halton region has installed back flow prevention valves, sump pumps and flood alarms to warn residents of flooding here at this Industrial Street complex in Burlington. Home owners say none of those devices have worked and want more help.

Michael Dellunto: “As far as compensation goes they didn’t compensate us, nothing, not our deductibles or anything. A lot of us had insurance and now we don’t because we’re considered high risk and they don’t want to cover it.”

Residents here say they’ve had enough of their basements flooding and would like to sell their units but are afraid no one will want to buy their homes.

Christine says: “Like really we’re stuck. Who’s gonna wanna buy this place. I dont’ feel comfortable selling it to someone. I don’t wanna sell them my problem.”

Cassandra dipastena’s mother’s basement flooded tuesday and the event sent her to hospital: “Right now she’s at the hospital because her heart rates beating too fast because she’s stressed out about the whole situation.”

So Halton region’s director of waste water services says the region will pay for clean up costs and will assess any other additional costs of the flooding on an individual basis. But the region also says it’ll likely to take another three weeks to figure out why basements keep flooding.