Strong winds and heavy rain pounded Cape Breton, N.S. for the second time in less than two weeks on Saturday.
The downpour caused major concern among residents who are already dealing with the aftermath of a storm last week that brought more than 220 millimetres of rain, flooding thousands of homes in the region.
In places like Sydney, the cleanup from that storm is far from over.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Felicia Abbass, whose home flooded during Thanksgiving weekend. Abbass is now living out of a suitcase.
“My hot tub floated away, garage floated away,” she told CTV Atlanitc on Saturday. “It was detachable, so it fell apart, flipped over.”
Barkley Haddad, the owner of a nearby bar, has similar fears the rain might cause further flooding.
“You look at it say…it’s here again,” he said.
Glace Bay was one of the hardest hit areas by Saturday’s storm, with more than half the flooding taking place in the town. Crews are working to repair power lines knocked down by the wind.
American charity Samaritan’s Purse arrived in Cape Breton to help with the relief efforts earlier this week.
“We have dozens of volunteers working in the community, but we could use three or four times that number,” said program director Stephen Joudry. “We have about 1745 work orders right now…so we have a long road ahead of us.”
In Halifax, some afternoon flights out of the Stanfield International Airport were delayed.
No flooding was reported, a relief to crews who have been working with little rest over the past week.
“It was a race against the clock to make sure the waterways were clear,” said Christina Lamey, a spokesperson for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. “We had a lot of cleanup still underway from the previous storm.”
While the wet weather is worrisome for those in Nova Scotia, many people in neighbouring New Brunswick are welcoming the rain where lakes are rivers in the south of the province are at record lows.
With a report from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore
