2018 Flood Season

Back when I lived in Dresden, ON, there was a flood.  The Sydenham river was backed up with floating ice, and the whole town was drowned.  I remember seeing Town officials standing by the banks, looking at the reading on a measuring stick.  And I remember paddling a canoe down the main street of town.

I also remember that when the flood came, there was some kind of "Oil 'n' Lube" business near the river, and when the waters rose it flooded their oil reservoirs, so the whole friggin' town had an oil slick on it.  When the waters went down, everything touched by the flood had "ring around the collar" from that oil.

I also remember that the Town volunteer fire department was prepared to fill the basement of any homeowner who wanted it.  The idea was that if the flood waters poured into your basement, they would be muddy and filthy, but if you filled your basement with clean water before the flood got up to that level, the clean water would keep the dirty water from pouring in, and you'd only have to deal with water, but not mud and silt.  That always struck me as a hell of a tough choice, and a hell of a gamble.

As I recall, the waters got within six or so inches of flooding our house, but we were in the "floodplain" and had no basement, so in the end we were unaffected.

The Fraser River is pretty brown, at the moment. It seems a bit early for this, but perhaps I'm not remembering correctly.

When I lived in Dresden (ON) we had a flood one year.  Our house was on the flood plain, so it had no basement, but we did have a crawlspace under the house (for pipes and suchlike) and there was a service hatch in my bedroom that I could remove to look down and watch the water rise.  It got to within a few inches, but it never made it into the house.

I did, however, get to paddle a canoe down the main street of the town.  That was fun, but disgusting.  The entire town had an oil slick on it, and everywhere the waters rose enough, there were floating volleyballs and pieces of firewood and bits of styrofoam and pretty much anything buoyant that wasn't nailed down.  And of course in the higher parts of town, business as usual.  We got a day off school, though, when the bridge got flooded out!

This "Heritage Minute" brought to you by Mr. Magoo.

Well, NR, I guess I can't say for sure, since we weren't actually flooded out.  Sure, the entire yard was water but it didn't make it up into the house in our case.

I know I've posted about this before, but it still fascinates me:  when the floodwaters were inching up (despite attempts to dynamite the ice jams downstream) the local fire department was willing to come and flood the basement of anyone in danger, using clean water.  The gamble was simple.

If the waters crept up to where they'd flood your basement anyway, being "pre-flooded" with clean municipal water would mean that very little muddy and ugly floodwater would force its way in.  You'd have water damage, of course, but not silt and oil damage.

But if they filled your basement, and then the river waters receded, you'd have water damage that you might have totally avoided.

It was literally "the evil you know" versus "the evil you don't" and some homeowners probably risked it and won, and some others probably called the FD and won, but others would have done both and lost.

There did seem to be a bit of a quiet resignation that we lived near the Sydenham river, and that river floods every few decades, so whatchagonnado?  Like the Toronto (and really, most of the north-eastern continent) blackout, way back when, people rolled with it.  I recall going down to the bridge, at one point, to see the official dipping of the Official Measuring Stick.  And then everyone just talked among themselves.