Burlington under water

Epic flooding in our region tonight brought highways, roads and much of Burlington to a standstill this evening. Video taken from inside a car that managed to get through the flooding on the QEW tells the tale. But as it somehow gets by, you can see several rows of cars stopped on the other side of the highway going nowhere. And while the highways were in bad shape — so were many streets in the city.

The Burlington Fire Department is still on the scene at Windy Oaks and Golden Eagle Drive after the flooding caused a major gas leak here. In other areas, the highways were flooded and basements were drenched.

Chris Davison has lived on Addison drive for more than 16 years. He says he’s never seen anything like it before: “The water came down so hard between the houses that the sump pump couldn’t handle the flow of water, even though it was going full out.”

Highway 407 and Appleby Line was closed after at least three lanes were flooded. Some people abandoned their vehicles while others were stranded inside them.
The heavy rain caused the banks of a creek at the end of Windy Oaks Drive to give way, causing a major gas line leak.

Tim Dowd, Burlington Fire Dept: “It has unfortunately broken a 6 inch gas main at two different spots. We have a high volume of gas going into the atmosphere. It’s a major feed that will be feeding this entire area. They are working on shutting to down right now but there will be some difficulty because it’s normally a buried line that is no longer buried.”

Mike Leone smelled the gas: “You can smell it all the way up the street. The force of the gas line — you could hear it hissing all the way from the corner.”

Two homes on the other side of the creek were evacuated. Others were also put on standby for the evacuation.

Union Gas is on scene here. They are trying to shut off the gas but they say it will be at least another hour.

Police are asking anyone with rising water in their homes to shut off the hydro and the gas and the City of Burling issued a statement asking anyone who is out tonight to please stay off the roads.

OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt spoke of the busy evening for emergency personnel.