Rainstorm causes major damage in Edmundston

The mayor of Edmundston, N.B., says damage is being evaluated after a sudden and intense rainstorm hit the city Thursday evening.

Éric Marquis told Radio-Canada water levels receded on Friday, despite some additional rain, but Thursday's storm left many homeowners, and the city, with significant damage.

According to Environment Canada, at least 60 millimetres of rain fell in the region, but Marquis thinks the level of water on the ground reached 150 millimetres.

"We know at least 60 millimetres of rain fell in 60 minutes, but we are convinced it was much more than that," said Marquis, in French. "In the Saint-Jacques region, we had people who said there was almost 100 millimetres of rain that fell in an hour."

Marquis also said that they were lucky that there are no reported injuries or deaths as a result of the storm.

"We are talking about several flooded residences and roads being cut-off," he said to Radio-Canada. "Railway traffic is also blocked."

 Jacques Doiron is from the municipal Emergency Measures Organization and is also the director of fire services in Edmundston. He confirmed the municipality was caught off guard by the storm. Environment Canada had issued warnings, but it was too late.

"The only alert we received was at 5:30 p.m.," he said in French. "We have a plan for facing these emergency situations but because we had no warming, our pumps were not installed. We will be verifying why we did not receive that warning."

Marquis said regardless of the lack of warning, with the amount of rain that hit the region in such a short span of time, the city's system may have still been overwhelmed.

According to the mayor, 110 residences reported sewer back-ups or flooding in their basements Friday morning, especially those in Saint-Jacques. By Friday afternoon, 190 households had registered storm damage with the city.

"We're in the recovery phase," said Doiron. "We're trying to fix the damages and evaluate the damages."

The Emergency Measures Organization is asking those affected to contact their insurance company as soon as possible to assess the damage, and to take lots of photos of any property damage.

A brief statement from the Government of New Brunswick issued Friday afternoon echoed this message, and said a disaster financial assistance program has been launched to help people, businesses and local governments that suffered property damage following Thursday's heavy rains.

Specialists are expected to be on scene all weekend assessing the damage.