WHITBY FREE PRESS, Thursday, December 9th, 1971, Page 13 STORM DAMAGE EXCEEDS I E HALF MILLION DOLLARS HOW MUCH CAN WE RAISE? On August 28, 1971, a violent rain- storm struck Whitby, leaving in its wake an estimated $600, 000 in damages. Effects still visible three months later Uniikemost natural disasters, little or n o t h i n g of its effects were visible above the ground, but in the basements of about 300 homes, the effects are still v i s i ble, more than three months after the event. T h e d r a m a t ic sequence of events caused by the storm began at 8:53 a. m. when a resident of Chesnut Street East c a i I ed the t o w n 's emergency control centre to report a sewer backup in his basement. An hour later a Brock Street mer- chant reported flooding in the basement of his store, and from then on, calls came flooding into the control centre as f a s t as the w a t e r entered basements throughout the town. Alarm at Annes St. pumping station By 10:30 a. m. , an alarm sounded at the Annes Street Pumping Station, and 3 3 m i n u t es later a second alarm was triggered at the Blair Street Station. Works department personnel rushed to t h e scene, to f i n d water had risen over the floor of the Annes Street sta- tion. If not discovered in time, it would have put the station out of service. First pump dispatched At 1 0: 40 a. m. , the first pump was d i s p a t c h e d by the works department to a hom e on Donovan Crescent where water was reported in the basement. The brunt of the storm By Il1 a. m. , the brunt of the storm hitwithfull force and call s began coming into the emergency control centre at the rate of as many as two a minute. As the calis incr eased, a second dispatcher was called in to man the phones and send out pumps and work crews to aid frantic citizens who sud- denly found water and sewage shooting up the drains into their basements. Shor t I y after noon, residents near t h e C PR o v e r pass on Dundas Street East repor ted water had i ifted the cover off a manhole, and homeowners on Ash Street reported water was shooting up mmore than a foot in the air out of the manhal es. At 2:51 p. m. police were dispatched te a home on Lupin Dr ive when the owner r e p or ted he had seen dir t and flower s disappearing down a hol e in front cf his home, a n d was afraid his house would fall down. Eight minutes later r es iden ts r epor- ted water shooting a foot eut cf a sewer manhole at Dundas and Raglan Streets, and hydrostatic pressure under a home o n Bell Drive opened an l8-inch crack in the upstairs kitchen wali, and split the basement floor. Walton Blvd. & Wellington St. By 3 p. m. residents on Wal ton Boul- evard were bailing out their basements w i t h p ails, and Wel ington Street was reported flooded over with water. Ash Street had become a massive lake by mid-afternoon as the creek flood- editsbanks, and nearby residents rep- orted as much as five or six feet of water in their basements. At 4:32 p.m. a resident of Centre S t r e e t N orth reported the water had risento the door of his basement apart- ment and 10minutes later it was into the upstairs living room. At 3:28 p. m. the Whitby O.P.P. repor ted a car was up to its roof in water at the CPR underpass on Thick- s o n Road, and the Whi tby pol ice were dispatched to the scene. An urgent call1 was sent to the Oshawa Suburban Roads Commission which ob- tained a row boat from the Oshawa fire department to aid in rescues at the un- derpass. Concern for water reaching electrical power equipment Residents expressed concern about the rising waters reaching the electri- cal power equipment on their basement w a I I s and one h o m e owner on Dundas S t r e et W e s t reported the water was on 1 y a foot away from the master con- trol panel. Fire department and work crews were dispatched to scores of homes, where in some cases they had to break basement w i n d o w s to r e a c h foating pieces of furniture. Homeowners quickly began salvaging eve ry thing they could from the rising water, but in many cases people were away at the cottage or out of town, and had no chance to rescue any of their bel- ongings. After being contacted by neighbours or relatives, they arrived home in the even i ng or the next day to find their furniture and other possessions float- ing in water or covered with siime from the sewage which came up through base- ment drains. E v en at 8 p. m. after the storm had passed, residents on Ash Street called the emergency control centre to report as much as five or six feet of water and sewage in their basemnents. By midnight, the contrai centre had received nearly 400 callis regard ing .the storm in a period of 15 hours. Rainfali intensity curves Àccording to rainfall intensity curves for Whitby, a storm o f the intensity of the one o f August 28 is likely to occur only once in a period of 25 years. 5.5 inches in eight hours a total of 5. 5 inches of rain w a s recorded at the Stokely-Van Camp factory, more than five times the amount recorded for the Oshawa area in Hurricane Hazel. Officiai figures released by the dir- ector of public works, indicate 5.5 in- che s of rai n fe Il at the Stokely-Van Camp plant and 4. 23 at thePringle Creek sewage treatment plant. The a m o u nt of rainfall1 recorded at O s hawa during Hurricane Hazel, Oct. 15, 1954was only i. 47 inches. The max- imum recorded during Hurricane Hazel was 7. 15 inches at Snelgrove, Ontario, whi le 2. 86 inches were recorded in Tor- on to-West Hili and 3. 27 inches in Ux- bridge. WhileWhitby received a maximum of 5. 5 inches of r ai n during the August 28th storm, Pickering received only 3. 31 inches and Oshawa, 1. 9 inches. More than n ine million gallons of w a t e r a nd sewage flowed through the Pr i n g le Creek sewage pl an t, much of which was not recorded because it over- f i owed the inlet chamber and could not be measured. The normal flow through the plant i n dry weather is an average of 1. 729 million gallons per day. continued on page 14 WATER street rèaIy became water street. Chris Colp and Dougal Paul stop to pose for the camera before continuing their splash on the lawn. Property li situated at thecorner of Brock St. South and Water St. In the Port. No it's not River Street . . . it'sBrockStreet South looking towards the dock. Water crosses road completely for about fifty feet, the aftermath of 6. hour rain storm.