Many residents and business owners are dealing with flooding across Windsor-Essex after record-breaking heavy rainfall hit the region.
By Tuesday afternoon, as the rain continued to fall, several streets were also flooding in Windsor. City services are working on fixing issues.
The City of Windsor is setting up an Emergency Operations Centre at 65 Elliott Street East.
Windsor police say numerous roads are closed due to flooding. E.C. Row Expressway was closed, but has reopened.
People were abandoning their cars at Dominion and E.C. Row because of a flooded road. Cars were also stuck on Dougall due to flooding.
Police were warning residents to not drive unless absolutely necessary.
Residents and drivers aren’t the only ones dealing with the aftermath of heavy rainfall, Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj says Met Campus has significant flooding.
WRH officials are asking anyone requiring emergency care to go to the Ouellette campus or Leamington.
Musyj says they have geysers coming up three-feet high in the kitchen. He says the basement is also home to diagnostic imaging and the pharmacy.
Devonshire Mall is closed due to drainage problems. A caller to the CTV newsroom says crews were cleaning up water on the floor infront of the GNC store and in the basement of The Bay.
Meanwhile, Windsor’s 311 is experiencing significant call volumes. To avoid waiting, you can use 311 Online to report basement flooding: ow.ly/45FZ30eLxNF.
The Essex Region Conservation Authority issued a flood warning for the region Tuesday morning.
Environment Canada says Windsor Airport received 57.4 millimetres of rain on Monday, breaking the old record of 43.2 mm of rain set in Aug. 28, 1961.
By Tuesday afternoon, the rain was still falling and the forecaster issued a severe thunderstorm warning. some of the Windsor totals were over 100 millimetres.
Tecumseh officials say the town received approximately 150 mm in six hours on Monday. In comparison, the storm event in September 2016 saw 175 mm over six hours and 195 mm over 12 hours.
“All pump stations were operating with storm water pumped directly into Lake St. Clair, not through any treatment systems,” says a statement from Tecumseh officials. “Crews worked to remove any debris from grates leading to pump stations as water flowing to the stations was moving faster than usual, sucking a high volume of debris into the grates.”
Residents who experienced flooding in their basements are encouraged to fill out the survey on Tecumseh.ca to assist the town in collecting data on areas of impact.
ERCA says that there is water over roadways at various locations throughout the region. Isolated heavy thunderstorms through the evening hours on Monday caused local drainage infrastructure to be overwhelmed with run-off resulting from those isolated heavy downpours.
ERCA says the areas most significantly impacted are roadways within the Lakeshore, west of Belle River, the existing older portions of Tecumseh and isolated areas in Windsor.
Many residents are dealing with basement flooding in those areas.
In Lakeshore Chadi Abouhaseem and his entire family have been bailing water from their basement with buckets and three different pumps they couldn't keep up.
“When my wife came down here, she started crying," says Abouhaseem.
The Town of Lakeshore has asked residents to limit water use.
At the beginning of the rainfall event, Environment Canada issued a rainfall warning for Windsor and Essex County around 7:35 p.m. Monday and warned of localized flooding due to heavy rains.
