South Shore communities assess damage after historic rainfall - Action News
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Nova Scotia

South Shore communities assess damage after historic rainfall

Officials and residents on Nova Scotia's South Shore are taking stock of infrastructuredamage aftertorrential downpours caused flooding in thearea Friday and Saturday.

Lunenburg mayor says funding will be needed to repair and replace infrastructure

A crumbling section of a highway that has been marked off by pylons.
The shoulder of Highway 103 near Chester, N.S., between exits 8 and 9, was damaged when torrential rains swept through the province earlier this weekend. (Jean Laroche/CBC)

Officials and residents on Nova Scotia's South Shore are taking stock of infrastructuredamage aftertorrential downpours caused flooding in thearea Friday and Saturday.

Carolyn Bolivar-Getson, mayor of the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg, said she's never seen damage like it.

"I lived the flood of 2005. We had damage at that time, but this here is by far much more significant than that was,"Bolivar-Getsonsaid Sunday.

Bolivar-Getson said water levels have been receding in most areas of the municipality, but the extent of damageis still being assessed.

She said funding will be required to replace infrastructure and conduct repairs.

A woman in a black and white patterned jacket talks to the camera,
Lunenburg Mayor Carolyn Bolivar-Getson says the district will need funding for infrastructure repairs. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

Theodore Bruhm, 72,and his wife Ethel Willis, 82, were evacuated from West Northfieldearly Saturday, as floodwaters threatened their home.

Bruhm said an area of their road had been washed out, so he and his wife, who has difficulty walking due to a medical issue, had toget in the bucket of an excavator to get to a rescue vehicle.

The couple were first taken to theLunenburg County Lifestyle Centre in Bridgewaterand spent the night at theNova Scotia Community College.

A man in a burn sienna t-shirt speaks into a microphone.
Theodore Bruhm said he and his wife had to be rescued from their home by an excavator. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

Bruhm said Sunday he was still shaky from the ordeal.

"This here was a hard thing," he said."The older you get, the more you mind stuff like that."

'Like somebody opened up the skies'

Thomas Ogden of Bridgewatersaid chunks of a riverbankoutside his homewere washed away by floodwaters during the downpours.

He saidseveral of his trees are goneand the water supply to his home was cut off when pipes were washed away by the raging waters.

A man in an ecru t-shirt speaks to the camera.
Thomas Ogden of Bridgewater says several trees and part of the riverbank near his home were washed away. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

Ogden said Friday's extreme rainfallwas the first time he witnessed anything like it in hisfour years of living in the area.

"You couldn't see twofeet in front of you," he said. "It was just like somebody opened up the skies."

In Bakers Settlement, about 15 kilometres west of Bridgewater, Neily Holdright said the area on both sides of one road looked like a lake.

Holdright saida small bridgenear his neighbour's home was moved downstream by the force of the water.

A man in a taupe t-shirt speaks to the camera.
Neily Holdright of Bakers Settlement said he and his neighbours had to save a small bridge that was almost washed away. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

He said by mid-morning Saturday, the waters had subsided enough for him and a neighbour to pull the bridge up on a bank and salvage it.

"I've only lived here for 10 years myself, but all the locals and my in-laws across the street here, they'd never seen anything like this and they've lived here for 77 years," Holdright said.

"Tosee all of this underwater in the form of a lake was pretty devastating and shocking."

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With files from Jean Laroche

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