One year since the flooding in Burlington

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It was one year ago today when an unprecedented storm drenched parts of Burlington.

Several thousand homes were flooded after sewers backed up and waterways overflowed.

It’s a day Glenn Nicholson won’t forget. In just a few hours his home was swamped with water

“When I came down the stairs there were only 5 stairs left visible so that was the water up to here.”

About 2 months worth of rain fell in 6 hours that day, shutting down the QEW, trapping cars and drenching neighbourhoods with almost 200mm of rain. Sewers backed up and rivers and creeks burst their banks.

The floods caused more than $145 000 in damage at the Nicholson’s home.

“We had a lot of stuff and the memorabilia is what hurts the most there were some family videos and pictures that we lost.”

A year later there are still signs of the disaster. A fence that still needs to be repaired, mud that shows just how high the water was and piles of leftover debris.

3500 homes were flooded including Mayor Rick Goldrings.

“It took us a couple of days to really understand how extensive it was.”

Looking at the water level of tuck creek now it’s hard to believe that it got high enough to spill out into the road. Every house on a section of Regal Road was flooded.

Nicholson says he and his neighbours are nervous every time it rains.

“We are all on creek watch. Every time it is raining there is someone out there checking how high the creek is.”

They’ve even started marking the water levels on this tree.

Halton is planning to spend $100 million over the next 10 years on water-flow improvements.

Over the last year almost $3 million has been handed out to 272 homeowners as part of the Burlington flood relief program that was launched days after the flood. The community rallied together to raise money, including Nicholson and his neighbours. The total claims from the storm tops $100 million.