New flood map shows thousands of homes affected along St. John River
About 5,500 homes along the St. John River flooded or were at risk of flooding this year, according to Statistics Canada.
That wasn't all.
Around 17,500 dwellings were affected or at risk of flooding in southern Manitoba, the Ottawa-Gatineau region, the Saint-Marthe-sur-le-Lac region of Quebec and Fredericton-Saint John region.
"These kind of weather events do not have light consequences," said Tim Werschler, assistant director of Statistics Canada.
"There are people's lives affected. There's property affected and it's not inexpensive."
The report, Impact of spring flooding in key areas across Canada, was produced to help Canadians better understand the scope and impacts of spring flooding, said Werschler.
"I know I'm from Manitoba and I've experienced lots of floods in my youth and adulthood growing up there, and I thought this would be a good chance to broaden out some discussion on the flooding."
Of 10 municipalities in New Brunswick and Quebec, Fredericton had the second highest number of homes affected, or at risk of being affected, by flooding at 1,374 of 26,267 homes.
Saint-Marthe-sur-le-Lac had the most homes affected by flooding at 1,745 of 6,877 homes.
Nearly 6,000 homes in the Ottawa-Gatineau region were flooded or at risk of flooding.
The Fredericton-Saint John region had the largest flooded area (383 square kilometres) and had the most kilometres of roads flooded or at risk of flooding (238 kilometres of road).
It's easy to construct roads alongside rivers and lakes, but doing so leaves them vulnerable to impacts of flooding, Werschler said.
"Actually, in the case of New Brunswick, the roads were kind of pound-for-pound substantially more impacted."
The numbers in the report are estimates and likely to change in the coming months, however.
"We don't want to vastly overestimate or underestimate the dwellings that were affected, and the best data of course are available from the people who are working on the ground, the agencies on the ground who are literally going door-to-door."
