Charlottetown mayor acknowledges flood readiness problems

Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee doesn't agree with everything in a recent report on flood preparedness in cities across Canada, but he does agree Charlottetown could be doing better.

Clifford Lee told CBC News his staff will use the information in the report, which was commissioned by Co-operators Insurance and researched by a team from the University of Waterloo, to improve flood readiness in the city.

"I've already asked our administrative staff to go through the report with the view of identifying weaknesses," said Lee.

"There's no doubt in my mind that we can be doing better than we are doing now."

Charlottetown received an overall mark of C-.

• Maritime cities perform poorly in flood preparedness

Lee said there are useful recommendations in the report.

For example, Lee noted the report flags the need to have a back-up electricity source in case of flood-related power outages. The city has already highlighted that and will work with Maritime Electric on possible solutions.

Storm drains cleared regularly, says Lee

Lee said some information in the report is inaccurate.

The report says city crews only clear blocked storm drains when risk of flooding, and Lee said that is not the case.

"We regularly have crews during the summer season going around clearing out the ditch systems," he said.

"Every fall, every catch basin in the city is actually taken off the top and the drains are cleared of any leaves, anything that are in the system."

The Waterloo professor who wrote the report, Blair Feltmate, said he surveyed and compared information from four different senior staff members with the City of Charlottetown, whichhelpeddeterminethe city's grade. He said all people interviewed were promised anonymity.Feltmateis confidentthe report is an accurate reflection of the city's flood readiness.