SHERBROOKE – Residents in Sherbrooke and surrounding communities were forced to reroute travel, delay plans and adjust daily routines after flooding shut down sections of Hwy. 7 and cut off key routes following a night of heavy rain and wind last week.
The St. Mary’s River showed its force in the early morning hours of March 18, breaching its banks and covering fields and roadways. Several local routes, along with parts of Hwy. 7 between Sherbrooke and Aspen, were rendered impassable.
There were multiple road closures, with Hwy. 7 opening the following morning, March 19, after water levels subsided.
Residents travelling between Sherbrooke and Antigonish were forced to detour via Hwy. 211, accessing the Country Harbour ferry to reach their destination.
In an interview, Country Harbour resident Lynn Hayne said she was scheduled for two meetings in Sherbrooke on Wednesday afternoon [March 18].
“In the end they were actually both cancelled and rescheduled. I did not know of the cancellations as I was already on the road with no cell service,” said Hayne.
Noting the ferry service usually departs the Country Harbour side on the hour and the Port Bickerton side on the half hour, “I was early for my crossing and the ferry was already heading across so I thought I had missed my run,” said Hayne. However, she noted the ferries were actually crossing continuously due to the amount of extra traffic caused by the closure of Hwy. 7 at Stillwater.
“In all I observed six crossings, each one between 50 to 100 per cent filled to capacity,” said Hayne. “I was very thankful to see that the ferry was filling the void for commuters forced to use this detour.”
In an interview, Warden James Fuller of the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s said the confluence of water and ice causing road closures is not a new occurrence in the area.
“This occurs almost every year in one spot or another depending on locations,” Fuller said. “In Stillwater, the river frequently comes over the road — even in harsh summer rainstorms. Just not as much as our recent occurrence.”
He noted road closures such as this have a significant impact on the delivery of services to the community.
“Almost all normal services sustained an impact, as staff were involved in the monitoring of the situation and communication with our emergency partners,” Fuller said.
He added even services such as trash pickup are affected.
“The list can go on — food delivery to Clover Farm, milk pickup to dairy farmers and mail.”
Ambulance and fire response must also be carefully managed, Fuller said, “depending on which side of the flood you are located.”
In an email, Dylan Blain, senior advisor of communications and external relations at Emergency Medical Care Inc., told The Journal that “given the impact of these road closures, Emergency Health Services (EHS) ensured the strategic placement of resources to best provide care to the affected communities.”
Despite the conditions, he noted there were no interruptions to EHS’s ability to deliver emergency care during the flooding event.
Blain said throughout the event, EHS worked closely with Nova Scotia Health, Public Works, local fire departments, RCMP, EMO and additional community partners.
“This collaboration was essential in navigating the transportation challenges,” he said, “and EHS would like to thank all partner agencies for their support, coordination and efforts in helping maintain service continuity and community safety.”
Fuller said the municipality was in constant communication with all of these agencies throughout the event, including the hospital, if water levels rose to the point that evacuation would be required.
The bridge at Archibald Brook — already a concern for residents who rely on Hwy. 7 — is not slated for repair and reconstruction until 2027. Water surged beneath the structure during the flooding.
He explained that every three or four years, water at Lochiel Lake crosses the road and washes away the retaining wall, and “only with last year’s reconstruction and expansion of the culverts” has that seemed to slow.
Fuller said these types of natural disaster incidents are, although relatively infrequent, becoming increasingly alarming in scale.
“I am grateful that all the municipal and provincial partners involved maintained a high level of communication and coordination to help mitigate the overall impact to our communities,” he said.
“We will take the lessons learned from this experience to develop further plans for the next emergency event,” Fuller said, “and there most assuredly will be another event.”
