Skip to content

Residents’ homes flood after county disconnects drainage system

Springbrook resident Fionna McKinlay was nearly finished renovations to her flooded home when the waters came again.
Springbrookflooding2-Forstory-Natasha-Oct20_20101020150903
Springbrook resident Anne Grant points to the location of her home on a map of Springbrook. The pink colouring on the map represents homes that flooded and the yellow represents homes that did not.

Springbrook resident Fionna McKinlay was nearly finished renovations to her flooded home when the waters came again.

Standing on the steps to her basement that day in July, she could only watch in dismay.

“The water came in all four sides,” she recalled. “You know what I discovered? My house was floating for probably three days until the water pressure became so harsh around my house it had no choice, water had to come in.

“Isn’t that a horrible thought?”

The worst part was that it was all so unnecessary, she believes. There had been no problems with flooding on her street until Red Deer County undertook a major sewer overhaul last year. During that process, a number of homes had their external weeping tile disconnected from storm sewer lines, residents say.

Weeping tiles are pipes laid around the base of homes, perforated with holes to carry away rain water. Weeping tiles around modern homes do not carry the water to storm water systems, but direct it into the ground. But in the 1950s, it was not uncommon to design the systems to deliver the water into nearby sewers.

That was critical for her home and others on Pine Street because, unlike modern homes that are built on gravel foundations to allow water to seep away, the former CFB Penhold living quarters were built on clay, which traps water. The half-century-old street also does not have modern sidewalks and storm water gutters and drains to take water away after storms.

Based on that information, the county should never have insisted on disconnecting the weeping tile, she said.

“I think there should have been a grandfather clause for those houses built in 1952,” McKinlay said.

McKinlay eventually got a contractor to install internal weeping tile to fix her flooding problems. The bill came to $8,600.

She and other residents on the street are steamed that the county never told them their weeping tile was being disconnected. The county’s solution was to recommend homeowners buy and install a sump pump. That would not have solved the problem, the drainage experts told her. A sump only works when there is some place to put the water. That is not the case on Pine Street.

Anne Grant shares McKinlay’s frustration.

The home she bought in 2004 flooded as well, as did all of the houses on her side of Pine Street.

The water literally flowed across her basement after a June rainstorm, she said. “It was flowing like a river to the drain.”

To add insult to injury, the day before the downpour, the county sent residents a letter saying they were responsible for upgrading their household drainage systems.

Grant considers herself relatively fortunate. Her basement was not fully developed. Some carpet was ruined and sections of drywall had to be replaced. For others, the damage was much more extensive.

The $10,000 bill to install interior weeping tile only makes it that much worse. Many young families in the area can’t afford that expensive fix. And it is unfair to saddle them with the bill, she said.

“It shouldn’t cost you $10,000 to upgrade your house for something they did,” she said.

A meeting organized with county representatives, including operations staff and an engineer, was a “farce,” she said. County officials told residents that the problems were due to the wetter-than-normal summer. Nonsense, says Grant. There was more rain in 2005 and residents didn’t have any flooding problems.

A law firm has been contacted and about 55 names have been collected of people who were affected by what they consider the county’s negligence.

County operations services director Marty Campbell is well aware of the residents’ concerns and said the municipality is looking into it.

The county has been going to residents, including some living in the same block who were not affected by flooding, to get more information on how storm drains are set up. Staff are also looking at the area to see how water is draining from ditches.

“We’ve done a lot of homework on it. What we’re doing right now is we’re in the process of putting all that information together that we have from everybody, including our consultant who worked out there during (sewer) replacement.”

The information will be gathered and provided to residents.

“We are working on it, but we can’t give them an answer today because we’re still processing everything we’ve got for information.”

It will likely take a couple of weeks to complete the work and come up with a plan of action.

Campbell said until that work is completed, he doesn’t want to speculate on the cause of the flooding.

The county is also seeking disaster recovery funding from the province that could be available to residents with water-damaged homes.

pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com