I remember the first time I saw the footage of the great flood of 2004. It was not long after I started my broadcasting career working in Kingston for a radio station that shared studios with CHEX TV’s sister station CKWS. As the footage started to arrive, to air on Kingston’s newscast, it would stop people in their tracks. Over the next few days stories would come into the CKWS newsroom and updates on the situation would air regarding flooded businesses, homes and streets hundreds of kilometers away. It wasn’t just Kingston. Newspapers, television and radio stations across the province, the country and even the world printed or aired stories about this flood. The reason? Aside from the economic damage (over $100m) this flood was just "different" in a lot of ways.
This was no tropical cyclone that tracked in from the Gulf or the Atlantic. This system actually formed over Edmonton and tracked east finally settling in over Peterborough. Fed on the backside by cool, sinking air from the northwest this area of low pressure drew in warm, moist air from the south and over 5 days just saturated the region. It has been estimated that well over 200mm fell in the first five hours of the rain storm. The Trent University weather station recorded over 400mm of rain that July! That is far and above total precipitation values for a given summer. The amount of rain that fell could have filled the Memorial Centre easily 100 times!!! That is a crazy amount of moisture, especially from a system that originated in Alberta.
It was a perfect storm that persisted for days and will be remembered for many years to come. Happy Anniversary Peterborough! You survived one of the worst rain events in Canadian history and likely the worst in Ontario. Working through this disaster was a true testament to the hard working spirit and resilience of this community and is one reason why I am now proud to make Peterborough my home. It should be no surprise that this flood was one of the top ten weather stories issued by Environment Canada in 2004. (Number 4 by the way).
Feel free to share your memories of the flood by leaving a comment on the blog.
1 comment:
I remember the day very well. I got a phone call from my son in Toronto wanting to know if I was wet as I live in a basement apt. in East City. Why I asked and he said he was watching CTV news and he could see the back end of my car in the driveway from the news shots. I went out and sure enough there on Douro St. was a huge mobile news truck and water rushing down the street. No water ever did come onto my side od the road but sadly it went just across the road into many basements and right out onto Rogers then over to Mark where it did much damage to Mark St. United Church. It was a day though that I met neighbours I really did not know and we ALL worked together to help those who had much damage to their homes.
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