'It was completely underwater': Cambridge community remembers devastating flood 50 years later
CTV
May 17, 1974 started off like any other sunny spring day, but it very quickly turned into a day of disaster.
May 17, 1974 started off like any other sunny spring day, but it very quickly turned into a day of disaster.
“I was in high school at the time and my boss came to get me and told me to help get stuff out of the business’ basement because apparently a flood was coming,” said Cambridge resident, Ross Light. “So I hopped on my motorcycle and went to the store and started working downstairs. I got a call from the top of the stairway: ‘Ross, get out of the basement, the water is coming across the street.’ So I went up, got on my motorcycle quickly and left to higher ground.”
Light, who was 17-years-old at the time, shared his story at the Cambridge Fire Hall Museum on Saturday where community members gathered to commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Great Flood of ’74.
No one died and no one was seriously hurt but the impact devastated the community.
“For those people who know Cambridge well, Water Street right next to the river, it was completely underwater,” said museum volunteer Tom Reitz.
“It was quite some time after before things kind of returned to any sense of normal because of all of the mud and debris,” Light said. “My father had an office right on Water Street and all the files were soaked and expanded. It was a terrible.”
The flood was caused by weeks of wet weather and spring melt. It's still considered one of the largest floods ever recorded in the Grand River watershed.