The Township of Minden Hills is warning people that flooding is likely for the Gull River.
Minden Hills Mayor, Brent Devolin, spoke with MyHaliburtonNow.com earlier today, and he says that is was decided to issue the warning after a meeting of the emergency operations centre.
Aside from that meeting, Devolin explained that the town had been having regular conference calls with the Trent Severn Waterway, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. He adds that those phone calls continue to happen.
Devolin says that the good news is the Irondale and Burnt River watersheds both crested and they should be normalizing. The bad news was that the Gull River is expected to keep going up, hence the flood warning. The multi-term mayor echoed a message that had been brought up in the notices and road closures that have been going out since Friday, that message being that people remain diligent during this time.
Another reoccurring thought through the flooding concerns is the emphasis for Minden Hills residents to make use of the sandbags that are available at the S.G. Nesbitt parking lot, and at the Kinmount Furnace Falls road shed. Devolin says there is loose sand there but they have also started bagging the sand for people to use.
Devolin says that staff are going to be going door to door in areas that have been flooded in the past. The goal of those in person exchanges, according to Devolin, is to give those people an update on the status of their area and give any information they can.
Each day, after the conference calls, Devolin says the operations for the day are decided which he says means each day they will provide an update on what’s happening.
Trying to ease the minds of his constituents, Devolin says “this is the next level of escalation obviously,” he goes on to reinforce that people need to be diligent and take caution and care for the time being. He pointed out that water levels have been on the rise for four days now, but the rate it’s going up is slowing down.
Environment Canada is calling for rain today, tomorrow and Friday