City monitoring stormwater system after heavy rain soaks Windsor

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The City of Windsor is monitoring the performance of the stormwater system following the heavy storms over the weekend.

Windsor’s Commissioner of Infrastructure Services, David Simpson, told AM800’s Mornings with Mike and Meg that they have a lot of tired staff who were busy trying to keep pace with the impact of the storms.

Environment Canada says the region experienced two significant precipitation events on Sunday, one in the morning and another in the evening.

While the total rainfall figures are still being gathered, Environment Canada says there are reports of 40 to 80 mm of rainfall in areas west of the airport, while areas to the east of the airport in the Tecumseh area received between 60 and 110 mm from the two significant rainfall events.

Simpson says a lot of high flows over the weekend that are really stressing the operating capacity of our sewers and our pumping stations.

“Our crews have been out there regularly cleaning stormwater catch basins,” he says. “We’re doing our best to keep all the large municipal drains free of debris, and we keep monitoring and optimizing the rate at which our pumping stations are performing.”

Simpson says they’ve had a very high volume of 311 calls.

“To the point where we’re actually backed up a bit with the calls coming in,” he says. “I don’t know what the mix between what are basement flooding calls and tree damage calls, but, certainly, there is a lot of work to be done here.”

Simpson says there are things homeowners can do to help prevent flooding.

“Reporting any stormwater catch basin clogging to municipal 311. We also ask the homeowners to keep checking the operability of their home sump pumps,” he says.

Simpson adds that city staff are monitoring the Grand Marais Drain and the Lennon Drain, which are both operating at full capacity, ensuring there is no debris restricting the flow of the stormwater.