There is more work to be done on flood policy

By MPP Toby Barrett

To The Haldimand Press

This fall, November didn’t bode well for Lake Erie property owners. To borrow a line from Gordon Lightfoot’s song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, “…the gales of November came early.”

The stage was set for devastation with Lake Erie at record highs through much of 2019. This, combined with winds that reached 100 km/h, created a storm surge that reached 1.5 metres on the weekend of October 28. As a result, breakwalls were lost in Haldimand County, houses and businesses were flooded, and water submerged roads. Repeat performances followed on Halloween and again on November 27.

My staff started fielding calls immediately and have been on the phone ever since. Don’t hesitate to contact me at 1-800-903-8629 or toby.barrett@pc.ola.org.

The Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance Program is a provincial plan that can help residents and businesses with damages in the case of a disaster. The program is designed for people to contact their municipality and then the municipality asks the province for assistance. The next step in the process is, if deemed necessary, an assessment team will be dispatched to the municipality.