Weekend flooding hits southeast London, Ont. hard

Heavy rains leave flooding for London homeowners At least a dozen basements in the city's southeast are cleaning up after heavy weekend rain flooded basements. CTV's Sean Irvine has more.

London, Ont. — Property Restoration vehicles continue to line London’s Millbank Drive near Bexhill Drive on Tuesday following heavy rains over the long weekend.

The street in the southeast London neighbourhood of Westminster has at least a dozen homes where basements were damaged by water.

Looking down just his section of the street Raghbir Mander picked off several homes impacted by water rushing in on Sunday morning.

“It’s four or five houses I know, there’s a lot of damage done."

Nick Hristopski lives further down Millbank. On Tuesday morning he stood on his porch waiting anxiously for restoration crews to arrive.

His basement, which is home to his daughter and grandchild, was heavily damaged. His grandson’s toys are now piled high awaiting the junk bin in his backyard.

“Around 8:20 [a.m.] my daughter woke me up. She said ‘Daddy we are flooding!’ I walk into the basement I see from the main drains water shooting up."

Rob Gladysz lives across the street, and for the second time he is cleaning up from a flood.

Like Hristopski, he claims water was coming in the from the basement drains.

It was a tough sight as Gladysz was just completing a basement renovation.

“Look like there was probably four inches of water in there. It damaged all the drywall I just replaced. I had just painted it all too.”

Some of those impacted along Millbank say they’ve had enough and they want the city to investigate if its infrastructure is playing a part.

Gladysz contends,repeated floods in the same area, while other homes remain dry, cannot be an act of nature, and he wants a conversation with the city.

“I think we’d like to, because it’s not just in this neighbourhood it’s over on Bexhill and also in Summerside.”

Despite uncertainly over what caused the water to seep in, Hristopski goes further and says the city should have been proactive.

“I have to blame someone. The city never did anything to correct this and the whole basement is flooded.”

Monika Guzy, of the City of London, responded to a CTV News requests for comment late Tuesday, saying in an email statement, “Short but intense rainfall events are very characteristic of climate change and we have seen a number of these over the last few years across the city.

"With the significant rainfall that came down quickly, the sanitary sewer system experienced volumes beyond the system’s capacity and we saw a number of manholes that were surcharging as a result of the volume. Water levels in the sanitary sewer system have since receded and are all working normally."

But as the debate over who’s to blame is settled, those impacted along Millbank, and nearby, have little left to do but send their wet belongings to the dump.