Residents on the south shore of the Bay of Islands didn’t escape the storm as the Town of Humber Arm South declared a State of Emergency for the entire area from Halfway Point to Frenchman’s Cove after a water main break in Frenchman’s Cove left residents without water for a 24-hour period.
The water was turned back on for Frenchman’s Cove residents around 1 p.m. on Saturday, but Humber Arm South town clerk Marion Evoy said the State of Emergency would stay in effect until an assessment of the infrastructure is carried out.
“There was a lot of houses flooded and a lot of our infrastructure went out … we have a lot of roads washed out and a lot of pavement gone,” Evoy said Sunday.
Evoy said there were 150 households affected by the crazy rain that hit the west coast Saturday afternoon and residents are still being advised to keep safety in mind when travelling along the highway on the south shore.
“Traffic is flowing, but in some areas they’re saying to use at own risk because they’re not sure how stable the road is underneath,” she said.
People in Woody Point also had a tough time deal with torrential rain with power being knocked out and dozens of homeowners having to deal with high water levels in their basements.
Charlie Payne is only 19 years old, but he told The Western Star he talked to a lot of the older residents in the area and they told them it was the worst rainstorm they ever saw in that part of the province.
“There’s basements around with four or five feet of water in them,” Payne said Sunday afternoon.
Payne was spared any flooding to his property, but he said there were three or four landslides that went across the main drag and left the community with one-lane traffic in some sections so it’s pretty messy.
He saw first-hand the damage created by the storm in nearby Winterhouse Brook when he was working with Pike’s Service Station trying to keep the roads open in the area.
“I was working on a road where there was a brook clogged up, and I looked behind me and the full hill behind me slid across the road, cracked a light pole right off and knocked the power out,” he said.
Power was restored just before Payne finished his chat with the Star. Residents were left in the dark around noon on Saturday and Payne said it was a chilly one for everybody he figured.
“It’s still a bad mess here yet,” he said.
