Full extent of Canada Day flooding in Ottawa took days to learn, city staff say

Waterlogged belongings left outside after flooding devastated thousands of basements in Ottawa. (Katelyn Wilson/CTV News Ottawa)

City of Ottawa staff addressing city council on Wednesday say it took days to get a clear picture of the extent of the damage to thousands of homes after the record-breaking rainstorm on Canada Day.

City council received an update on the city’s response to the Canada Day storm and flooding, and several motions to aid affected residents have been introduced.

In a presentation, City Manager Wendy Stephanson said city staff’s immediate focus as the storms hit was to ensure public safety and access to roads and critical transportation corridors, and to assess impacts on municipal infrastructure and services.

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“Every emergency is different. Each one has its own challenges, its difficulties, uniqueness, and complexities. And in this case, one of our early challenges was determining the very full scope and severity of impacts, given a lot of the damage was inside people’s homes,” Stephanson said. “But through the information coming through our call centres, our councillors, service channels, field operations, and community partners that evolved rapidly over the first several days, and the picture became clearer, and the city adapted and evolved its response accordingly.”

To date, Stephanson said 3-1-1 has received more than 7,000 calls and there have been more than 6,000 reports of flooded basements across the city. Over 2,600 tons of storm-related garbage has been brought to the Trail Road landfill after multiple pickups in the hardest-hit neighbourhoods.

“Hearing firsthand about the impacts on residents and their families has been heartbreaking,” Stephanson said. “Behind every flooded basement and damaged or uninhabitable home are people and families, whose sense of safety and normalcy was disrupted. These impacts, they’re deeply personal, and I recognize the emotional, physical, and financial toll that they have taken on our community.”

Last week, Infrastructure and Water Services general manager Tammy Rose said the city’s rain gauges show the rainfall totals varied across the city, from 15 mm at Trim Road in the east end to as much as 167 mm at the Britannia Station in the west end.

General manager of Emergency and Protective Services Ryan Perrault said city services and partner agencies were already active on July 1 because of the Canada Day holiday and were able to pivot to an emergency response. But he also said it took several days to get a full picture.

“The full extent of impacts could not be determined from rainfall data or initial field observations alone,” he said. “The picture developed through multiple sources, including 3-1-1 reports, emergency calls, councillors’ feedback, field assessments, infrastructure inspections, and direct engagement with residents. By July 2, the city had received more than 3,000 reports of basement flooding. That number continued to increase over the following days and now exceeds 6,000. This was an emergency where the scale and severity of impacts became clearer over time.”

Motions to waive fees, partner with Red Cross

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe introduced several motions on Wednesday with the aim of helping flood-affected residents.

“We have a responsibility to our residents. Here’s what we owe the people who have been affected by this unprecedented storm,” Sutcliffe said.

“First, we must do everything we can, everything in our power to help them recover and get their lives back to normal, no matter how long that takes, no matter what it takes… Second, we must do a full assessment of what happened on July 1. We must uncover why so many homes were flooded. There may be different reasons and factors in every single neighbourhood. We must learn them all, and we must report back to the community. And third, we must learn from that assessment, and we must do better in the future.”

Proposed changes include:

• Allowing residents who have received a payment from the Compassionate Grant Program within the last five years to apply for it again for the July 1 storm.
• Endorsing a city partnership with the Canadian Red Cross to augment the city’s recovery and provide a suite of services for a period of up to six months, at a cost of no more than $400,000.
• Waiving demolition fees, building permit fees, fees related to accessing historic building permit records, and temporary encroachment fees related to the installation of dumpsters in the city’s right-of-way for residents affected by the flooding.
• Engaging with legal professionals with expertise in insurance to request that they support residents by helping community legal clinics and by participating in future public information sessions.

All motions related to storm recovery passed unanimously.

Councillors became ‘face of response’

Several city councillors criticized city staff’s response, saying measures weren’t activated quickly enough.

Kitchissippi Ward Coun. Jeff Leiper, who is running for mayor in the upcoming municipal election, said 3-1-1 was overwhelmed in the immediate aftermath and he was getting requests from residents trying to get the city’s attention, despite his ward not seeing the same level of impact as others.

“For days, it did feel like the only source of trusted information that was out there was the councillors who were doing so much work to communicate with residents,” he said. “I found it heartbreaking as the days went on that those councillors continued to be the face of the city’s response to this, and they became more and more exhausted and overwhelmed.”

Leiper said it took six days before he received an email indicating there was a councillor liaison to assist with the recovery efforts.

Councillors moved motions and directions to staff about reviewing the response, with particular emphases on Bay, College, and Knoxdale-Merivale wards, which were hit the hardest.

College Ward Coun. Laine Johnson and Bay Ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh put forward a motion calling on staff to review the maintenance and renewal of ditches, options to prevent Graham Creek from overflowing, and comparative results with the flooding on Aug. 10, 2023, among other measures.

Johnson also seconded the motion moved by Sutcliffe to work with the Red Cross on comprehensive, longer-term support.

“This has come too late. The city started too late, but I know that this action by the mayor serves to accelerate and is part of his ongoing commitment to stand up more and more services, so that we leave this better than we found it,” she said. “This partnership will be a series of improvements to the city’s emergency management response that makes it so that we can act more quickly and nimbly because this will undoubtedly happen again but it can’t ever happen again like this.”

West-Carleton March Coun. Clarke Kelly asked why it took until the following day to determine if the storms were a major event.

“We didn’t need to know how many 3-1-1 calls were logged to know this was a major event,” he said.

Perrault said city staff were dealing with multiple things on July 1.

“We were dealing with a heat event, we were enhanced for Canada Day, and we also went enhanced for our emergency response to the extreme weather event that occurred on July 1,” he said. “We were already enhanced on June 30 as we prepared to go into Canada. When the storms hit on July 1, we quickly pivoted to our emergency coordinated centre. Our immediate focus was life safety.”

Perrault said staff are committed to conducting a comprehensive review of the actions taken after the storm.

“The focus out the gate was on life safety and then transitioning to recovery, and part of recovery was looking at what were those supports that our residents needed and looking at different ways to provide those supports to our residents,” he said.

Storm flooded Stage 2 west LRT stations

Transit Services general manager Rick Leary told city council the storm caused flooding at O-Train stations under construction in the city’s west end.

“Flooding was seen in several areas, including the section of the guideway near Moodie Drive, within the tunnel along the Kichi Zibi (Mikan), at the stations at New Orchard, Sherbourne, Queensview, and Pinecrest,” Leary said.

“So far, I have received some preliminary information in the Moodie Station area, and it appears that a significant amount of the electrical systems and equipment, ballast sections of the track, as well as troughs and cabling, are all impacted and need to be repaired.”

Leary said the contractor working on the Stage 2 West Extension, East-West Connectors, is conducting a comprehensive assessment of the damage and the repairs that are required.

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“We are conducting our own review as well, and that will include working with the infrastructure and water services team to identify opportunities to strengthen rail infrastructure for future extreme events,” Leary said.

But he said it’s too soon to say how long the repairs will take and what impact the damage will have on the overall project.

The west extension, which runs from Tunney’s Pasture to Moodie Drive and to Algonquin College, is currently expected to be complete in the summer of 2027.