And our lake ice has just started to melt.
That means there could still be trouble for property owners on the West Shore.
Flooding, property damages, loss of road access, loss of emergency services, as well as large repair costs and unknown insurance issues are all very realistic. What's worse, if my watershed research is correct, we stand a 50% chance of this happening during freshets or heavy rain events.
That's because the Gregory Lane is very susceptible to flooding. This past week, the waters upstream of the causeway were within inches of over topping the road, even though the causeway had been raised since the 2013 breaching.
Hard to believe, but the approved design for the culvert installed in late 2012 specified 13.6 cubic meters per second of water going through the culvert; 0.1 cubic meters per second going through a now abandoned smaller culvert; and 8.9 cubic meters per second over the roadway.
A road that is an erodible structure!
And this past week, the Trent Severn Waterway recorded 12 cubic meters per second flowing through their dam - an amount that closely represents the flow through the culvert.
Too close for comfort!
If the TSW hadn't acted to drop water levels, there could have been terrible consequences.
The above graph shows the dramatic drop in water level after stop logs were removed from the dam to avoid serious flooding. The picture shows the current water level in the Burnt River.
For now - a big thanks to the Trent Severn Waterway staff!
1 comment:
This is a very detailed account of water levels in our lake Mike. Thanks again to you.
Did the TSW act on their own volition in increasing the outflow from our lake? Congrats to them.
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