City of Ottawa develops new mapping tool to manage future floods
Posted Jun 22, 2019 06:59:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Laila Gibbons, the Director of Public Works and Environmental Services with the City of Ottawa, spoke with 1310 NEWS about a new flood mapping tool designed to fight future flooding in Ottawa.
Gibbons says the tool helped determine how certain homes and infrastructures would be affected, as well as where the water would come from and what the best course of action would be during the 2019 floods. As a result, the City was able to react three days in advance.
“We’re never going to stop the water, but how do we divert it? Part of this is communication, but also, pre-deployment. Starting in mid-March, we started to pre-deploy sand and sandbags to some of those areas we knew would be first impacted by the spring freshet,” she says. Adding that, “every time we saw an increase in water levels, we knew what other areas we had to pre-deploy sand and sandbags to assist homeowners and where to put the volunteers and then when the army came in, what the focus would be for them as well.”
According to Gibbons, when comparing the outcome and response to the 2017 floods against the 2019 floods, the difference is clear.
“Obviously there were more homes this year that were impacted by flood waters, but I believe that there were more homes that were also saved compared to in 2017, because we were able to better predict where the waters were going to access properties.”
In an effort to help boost current prevention efforts, Gibbons is also working with a digital team to help make the tool available to the public, so they may know if their homes will be at risk in the future.
“We’re not there yet. We’re hoping that we will get there for, whether it’s 2020, 2021 we’re not certain, but that is the intent.”
