City council has asked the province to declare Thunder Bay a disaster area in order to receive financial aid from a relief assistance program.
Council voted unanimously in favour of a memorandum to ask Ontario to declare the city a disaster area at a special meeting Wednesday evening. Having Thunder Bay declared a disaster area will allow the city to apply to the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program.
Should the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing make the declaration, city council under the authority of ODRAP will appoint members of a disaster relief committee.
The memorandum also stated that city manager Tim Commisso and city clerk John Hannam be authorized through the province to apply for relief funding that might be available through the federal government.
Commisso said they are meeting twice a day to ensure that they continue to keep a handle on the situation. With the approval of council, Commisso said they can now look at every avenue possible to find more financial aid.
“One of the things council was asking on Monday was the dealing with the federal and provincial governments and taking advantage of the resources they may have,” Commisso said.
“What we found was for the most part the resources that we’re looking for are in the forms of programs that exist for financial assistants to cover costs both in respect to our infrastructure as well as people who have been affected.”
Mayor Keith Hobbs read an open letter to the community at the meeting and praised all the hard work everyone had done including those who stepped up in the community to help others.
Hobbs called the amount of rain and that occurred because of it flooding an “unprecedented event.”
“Some people are asking why the pump room flooded at our state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant,” Hobbs said.
“The short answer is that the intense rainfall of early Monday morning was an extraordinary act of nature. This is not a time to point fingers. This is a time for response. This is a time for help people. There will be time to discuss what happened.”
Hobbs said he spoke with Ontario Premier Dalton Mcguinty as well as Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and both gave their assurance that they are ready to jump in to assist.
Thunder Bay Fire chief John Hay said they haven’t received any reports of anyone being injured to date.
He added that people are welcome to go to the Neebing Arena for a place to stay but he added that they “can’t make people chose to be dry and warm.”
City infrastructure and operations manager Darrell Matson gave an update to council on where Thunder Bay was in regards to roads and the Atlantic Avenue sewage treatment plant.
Matson said the plant had two major issues – pumping out the portion of the plant that was flooding and damage assessments.
“Significant progress has been made in the last three days,” Matson said. “As of late this afternoon, we have isolated that part of the plant that we believe has a breach. That has to be confirmed.”
He said they have brought in a variety of experts to make a plan on how to handle the breach and make repairs.
All of the pumps have also arrived at the plant will be pumping out a hundred mega litres sewage per day.
The average daily flow of the city is about 40 to 60 mega litres meaning there is already a decrease in the amount of water in the sewers, he said.
Matson said Kline Road is still closed as well as a portion of Oliver Road. The reason why there are delays is that the flood runoff hasn’t receded so that needs to happen before construction workers can fill in the holes, he said.
He added that trails are being repaired and bridges are being inspected and the Edward Street Bridge is reopened.
Anyone whose home is flooded is asked to call the city’s flood hotline at 807-983-5663 or visit online at www.thunderbay.ca/flood
