It was an overnight
deluge in the western end of Niagara that flooded roads and buildings
and washed out a section of the main CN rail line west of St.
Catharines. Rail service along that line has been shut down
indefinitely — affecting not only freight trains but also Amtrak
and GO train passenger service from Toronto to Niagara Falls.
The damage is bad.
Torrents of water washed out a section of the CN Rail line foundation
west of Seventh Street in St. Catharines. A freight train is on the
other side. It’s blocked. The line is shut down. CN has no timeline
on where it will be repaired.
Freight trains are
being re-routed. Amtrak train service is disrupted.
When Steve and Renee
opened their basement door this morning, everything down there was
floating in water.
Renee Coulter,
flooded basement: “We could barely see our top stairs in the
basement. It was water. Water everywhere.”
Henk Sikking heard
the storm and the torrential downpour: “I had no idea how much
water until 5:30 this morning when my wife woke up and said the
neighbour’s are flooded.”
Henk walked into his
greenhouse at Pioneer Flower Farms this morning: “In some places,
we had over two feet of water in our greenhouse.”
He took these
pictures of plants floating out the front door.
The thunderstorm was
concentrated in an area between St.Catharines and Vineland. About 110
millimetres of rain fell overnight. That’s about five inches in a
matter of hours.”
There were pumps
going all over the place. Growers we talked to say they’ve never
seen this much water in the orchards and fields.
Dave Wall is a
tender fruit grower: “The land was a little dry. And to have the
land soak up all that water and then have all the ponding and
washouts. It must have really been bad.”
Roads were
crumbling. This driveway was destroyed. Fourth Avenue in St.
Catharines looked like a small lake. This section was closed all day.
Steve Brooker had a
flooded basement: “It was one of those days where you don’t know
what mother nature’s going to bring you. Yesterday was a nice sunny
day. The next thing you know, you’re under water.”
There was no Amtrak
service through Niagara today. Amtrak was bussing passengers between
Aldershot to Buffalo and Buffalo to Toronto and they’ll continue to
do that until the rail line is repaired. We just don’t know when
that will be.
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