A lot of people in our region will be keeping an eye on water levels this spring after the flooding we experience last year and that has some communities preparing.
After dealing with one of the worst spring flooding in the Township’s history last spring, Ramara town council is trying to stay ahead of what may happened this year.
“If you can’t control the weather you have to make sure you communicate as well as possible with people affected and I’m satisfied we’re doing that,” says Ramara Township Mayor Bill Duffy.
Thursday’s meeting was the second time council got together to address spring flood concerns. A representative from Parks Canada answered question about how they can help when it comes to managing water flow along the Trent Severn Waterway. At the end of the day though, Duffy says it all comes down to communication.
“We’re going to send out 900 brochures to people in low lying areas saying this is going to happen and we’re not going to be able to stop it so there has to be some onus on homeowners to protect their property and that the township can’t be responsible for everything.”
These are things that the township is responsible for and they are examining their response to last year’s flood and looking where they can improve.
“The biggest area of improvement to make on last year would be having sandbags ready to go and sand available faster. We were able to get sandbags out last year but at that point the flooding was already well underway,” says Ramara Township Fire Chief Dave McCarthy.
At this point no one knows if flooding will even take this spring so while townships are in the planning stages trying to map out their response to a potential flood – they say it is still too early to start filling sand bags. But they will be keeping a close eye on how the spring thaw goes down.
