Nova Scotia declared a local state of emergency for three Cape Breton counties on Saturday after a slow-moving rainstorm washed out sections of Highway 104, left residents cut off in their own communities and knocked out power to tens of thousands of customers across the province.
The emergency covers Richmond, Inverness and Victoria counties. Nova Scotia Emergency Management said multiple roads were closed and conditions were dangerous, and urged residents to stay off the roads unless travel was essential for health, safety or emergency purposes. “Do not drive through flood waters or around barricades,” the agency said in a social media post.
Environment and Climate Change Canada issued an orange level rainfall warning for all of Cape Breton early Saturday, forecasting rainfall rates of up to 20 millimetres an hour in some areas. The official monitoring station at Port Hawkesbury had recorded 118 millimetres by Saturday afternoon, meteorologist Samantha Roach told Acadia Broadcasting. Unofficial gauges reported to Environment Canada by residents showed considerably more elsewhere on the island, including 219 millimetres at St. George’s Channel, 178.6 millimetres in the Boisdale Hills and 230.1 millimetres at Sampsonville.
Roach said another 40 to 60 millimetres could fall before the rain tapers off to showers Sunday morning, and that the orange level warnings remained in place because the ground can no longer absorb much. Cape Breton has taken significant rain over the past several weeks and was already saturated by a downpour overnight Friday, she said.
“The possibility exists that there could be some more flooding with the leftover rainfall,” Roach said. “Stay inside and delay any travel, if you can.”
The washouts have severed the island’s main east-west artery in more than one place. A stretch of Highway 104 between exits 45 and 47 was closed, as was a second stretch running from Highway 320 to Highway 4, a span of roughly 10 kilometres. Highway 4 was closed in both directions near Northside River Bourgeois Road, and Highway 223 was shut from Bras d’Or Lake to Grand Narrows Drive. Local roads including Matthews Road, Morrison Road and Oban Road in Richmond County were closed by flooding and washouts, and ferry service at Englishtown and Little Narrows was suspended because of the weather. In the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, several roads in the Sydney and Glace Bay areas were closed by flooding, CTV News reported.
More than 40,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were without electricity at one point Saturday, The Globe and Mail reported, with winds of 60 to 80 kilometres an hour contributing to the outages. In the Port Hawkesbury area alone, more than 5,000 customers lost power at the peak Saturday morning, according to Acadia Broadcasting, and the utility had restored more than 3,000 in Richmond County by 3:30 p.m.
Some residents were left with no way out by road. Wendy Abbott, who manages the Bras d’Or Lakes Inn in St. Peter’s, told Acadia Broadcasting that washouts on both sides of her community had trapped her and her neighbours. “We can get out of the yard, but we can’t drive down the road,” she said. Staff reached the inn only by taking long detours through River Bourgeois, where more washouts have been reported.
Premier Tim Houston visited the command centre Saturday with Richmond MLA Trevor Boudreau and other officials. Houston said in a social media post that the province stands ready to deploy the Nova Scotia Guard once it is determined how the volunteer force can best help, and that crews and equipment will be pulled from other parts of the province to repair roads and infrastructure once the storm passes. The full extent of the damage will not be known until floodwaters recede.
Comfort centres where residents can charge devices and stay warm have opened at St. George’s Channel Hall, the Riverdale Community Centre in Lower River Inhabitants and the D’Escousse Civic Improvement Hall. Emergency officials are asking anyone who must travel to check road conditions through 511 first.
Rainfall warnings also remained in effect Saturday for parts of Prince Edward Island.
