Duane Hicks
While the flood of June, 2014 may seem like a distant memory to some, the process of dealing with the aftermath only recently has wrapped up.
Town council passed a resolution at its regular meeting Tuesday night to terminate the declared “emergency” in the Town of Fort Frances after receiving the final Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program (ODRAP) audited report prepared by BDO Canada LLP, charting the town’s disaster relief expenses from June 10, 2015 to Dec. 31, 2016.
The report noted the expenditures by the municipality to address disaster-related damages equalled $1,288,969.68.
These costs included $1.180,141.10 in contracted services and materials, $93,426.94 in municipal employee overtime labour and costs, and $15,401.64 in municipal equipment costs.
The town received $1,293,824 in disaster relief from the province.
Fort Frances CAO Doug Brown, who was manager of Operations and Facilities during the flood event, noted while the near-crisis was handled extremely well by the town, the effects of the flooding were greater than many people recall.
He noted repairs to the damaged infrastructure weren’t fully completed until the summer of 2016.
“We had 38 jobs that we were doing,” Brown saqid. “We had five sanitary sewer sinkholes–they collapsed because we surcharged the sanitary sewer.
“We had sinkholes because of the storm sewer–that’s what happened on Front Street and Minnie,” he added.
“We had nine of them–basically, the sand got into the pipe.
“Then we had to take all of the sand from the flood out of the lift station,” noted Brown.
In addition to the sandbagging that had to be done, with the help of community volunteers, along the upper river once the waters started rising, the town had to protect the area around the sewage treatment plant on the lower river to make sure it didn’t flood.
“Although it didn’t happen, we were about a foot and-a-half from not having a sewage treatment plant,” Brown recalled.
During the initial flooding, the town even had to pay to have a flyer hand-delivered to every home in town, informing residents to disconnect their sump pumps from the sanitary sewer.
Afterwards, the town and contractors had to do “riprapping” (put down rock to “armour” shorelines and prevent erosion) at Point Park and upper river, and rebuild the retaining wall at the beach, as well as replace the sidewalk along part of the riverfront.
Fallen trees had to be removed from the Point Park while the government dock, which was torn apart by the high waters, had to be removed, along with the pilings in the water.
Brown said he still hears positive feedback from residents on how well the town handled the flood event.
“It was well-managed,” he remarked.
“You think about: there was a lot more devastation than people thought, but we didn’t really have a lot of problems with the sewer system and we got things back to normal pretty quick.”
Brown deferred much of the credit to former Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig, former fire chief/CMEC Frank Sheppard, and public information officer Patrick Briere who got “the community to come together and protect themselves and work together to protect people’s property and homes.”
“I think we did a really good job,” he said.
Looking ahead, Brown said the town is in much better shape than it was to deal with any possible future flood events, noting the new “riprap,” in particular, is vital in preventing shoreline erosion.
Council also agreed Tuesday to forward BDO Canada LLP’s bill for $5,390 for preparing the audit to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for reimbursement.
