Ontario highway buckles after once

Aug 18, 2023

The driver of a transport truck was killed after his vehicle fell into a three-metre-deep sinkhole caused by once-in-a-century rainfall and flooding outside London, Ont.

Ontario Provincial Police said the 59-year-old driver from Mississauga was killed when a section of Dundonald Road, the main thoroughfare in Glencoe, collapsed.

Environment Canada is calling the isolated dump of rain Wednesday night southwest of London a one-in-100-year event that's left homeowners with soaked basements and drivers still stunned by the closure of a major highway.

The weather service said just over 135 millimetres of rain fell in a short period of time, with more rain in the forecast Thursday.

"We warn people when 50 millimetres of rain falls in 24 hours, so this is almost double that," said meteorologist Trudy Kidd.

Drivers travelling west of Strathroy around 6 p.m. ET Wednesday found themselves wheels deep in water.

Emergency services were forced to closed the highway for more than 12 hours overnight with water flowing across the highway and over the median, between Nauvoo Road and Kerwood Road.

As well as the fatal incident on Dundonald Road, police reported numerous crashes, due to the flooding, on roads in Middlesex and Lambton counties.

"I've never seen it in all my time, this much rain so quick in our community," said Todd Case, mayor of Warwick Township. "When you get five to six inches [127 to 152 mm] of rain in a very short period of time, there's no infrastructure that's developed in Canada that can handle that."

Emergency responders worked overnight to put up road blocks and help where needed, Case said.

"All hands have been on deck over the past several hours to close numerous roads that are been washed out and redirecting traffic."

There were still closures Thursday morning, including Dundonald Road, which was expected to be shut for several weeks. The OPP did reopen Highway 402 at 7 a.m.

Glencoe residents spent the night mitigating flooded basements and roadways, along with backed-up sewage spewing from sinks and toilets.

"The rain just came. It was torrential," said James Parker, who lives on Main Street with his daughter Cassandra.

He added he hadn't experienced anything like it in his 12 years of living there.

"It was non-stop. Within an hour to an hour and a half, there was a foot [nearly 31 cm] of water."

Neighbours rallied together in response, taking water pumps and hoses to other people's properties and even bailing out water by hand where they could. The Parkers and many others had up to over a metre of water in their basements.

"I'm worried," said Cassandra of Thursday's rain forecast for the area. "It's too much damage already. This town can't handle it, I don't think."

Just east of the Parkers on Mill Street, Jamie Shields took the day off work in Chatham to supervise three water pumps moving water out of his father's and stepmother's basement.

Shields was at a nephew's birthday party the hour the rain started on Wednesday. It wasn't long before he and the other guests had to leave to take care of their properties, with some vehicles getting stuck in the rapidly rising water on the way out.

His parents had just finished repairing their basement from a previous flood.

"It's frustrating," he said. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime storm, so I don't know how you prepare for something like this."

Warwick Township has issued an alert telling drivers to avoid the following streets:

With files from Angela McInnes