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Placentia residents, mayor frustrated after infrastructure buckles under 200 mm of rain

Bill Quilty's Saturday to-do list only had one item on it — paint a room — until he walked downstairs to fetch a can of paint and saw the water pouring in.

Quilty, a musician who lives on Bond's Path in Placentia, was one of several residents who found backed up water flooding their basement on Saturday morning.

Placentia was hit with more than 200 millimetres of rain in less than 40 hours, and some of the town's infrastructure couldn't take it.

That leaves Bill Quilty frustrated.

"Whether it's covered by insurance or not, there's personal things there that are going to be lost because water backed up. It's just because the drainage couldn't handle it," he said. "And now we have another one coming on Tuesday or Wednesday. Is the same thing going to happen?"

As of Monday, the track for Hurricane Teddy doesn't mean much for the Avalon Peninsula, though Placentia can expect periods of rain throughout Wednesday and Thursday.

Terry Roberts/CBC
Terry Roberts/CBC

Quilty has about a small studio and about a dozen guitars, several of which were below the flood water. He also had a brand new $4,000 piano accordion, never played, which got soaked.

"I guess most of that is not going to be any good," he said.

Placentia Mayor Bernie Power feels the pain of the residents who suffered flooding or driveway washouts in the storm.

He, too, is frustrated that some of the town's infrastructure didn't hold up to the falling rain. Power said some of those things, like culverts, were owned by the province.

The timing was not lost on Power. The rain came just before the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Igor, which left Placentia a flooded and washed out mess.

Terry Roberts/CBC
Terry Roberts/CBC

He said the town will have to expect weather events like this from now on, due to climate change.

"Ten years is not a very long time, but here we are with the same type of occurrence," he said. "Not as drastic as Igor, but again, anybody who wakes up in the morning and their basement is full of water or they can't get out of the driveway, it certainly brings back bad memories."

With climate change in mind, Power said it seems municipalities will be turning to the province for money more often.

That includes this rainfall in Placentia.

"The town will be lobbying again to the provincial government for support here as well to make this infrastructure upgrade," he said on Monday.

CBC
CBC

The town's public works department is still assessing damages, so there is no price tag yet.

Quilty said something has to give — if the town's drainage system hadn't backed up, there wouldn't be water in his basement.

Power said he understands the complaints he's hearing and feels for the people who lost cherished items.

"It gets quite frustrating and they've got legitimate concerns," he said.

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