Strathroy-Caradoc tallies damage to parks after July rain events

If you come across a picnic table in the Sydenham River, Strathroy-Caradoc wants it back.

The municipality is tallying damage to its parks, including the loss of ten picnic tables, after last month’s extreme rain events.

“The difference with this flood and regular flooding that we have is the length of time it took for the water to recede,” explained Community Services Director Rob Lilbourne. “Because of the wet spring and summer that we’ve had the water table’s been really high, so the receding of the water actually took several days to weeks for it to fully recede,” he said.

A damaged ball diamond is seen in Alexandra Park, Strathroy (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London)

Lilbourne has prepared a report for the local council, laying out some of the damage to Alexandra Park, Centennial Park, Victoria Park, and Cuddy Sports Field.

Damage includes choked grass inside the parks, damaged turf in ball diamonds, and engineered safety surfacing in playground areas contaminated or washed away. Mom of three Navia Jephin brings her children to the playground at Alexandra Park. On this day it was fenced in with a sign that said ‘playground closed.’

Playground in Alexandra Park, Strathroy (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London)

“So at that time they are asking whether they can go to the playground, and at that time I told it’s full of water. So they are so sad, because I think all the playground it’s like the same. It’s like also they have no opportunity to play,” she said.

The St. Clair Region Conservation Authority says extreme weather events that used to be rare, are happening more often. Sometimes these events leave a long trail of damage to surrounding lands and culverts said Water Resources Director Girish Sankar.

“What we would normally get in the month of July is anywhere between 70 to 90 millimetres of rain, and just during that event we had received close to 150 millimetres of rain. So, you can say almost double the amount of rain for the entire month of July fell in a single event over three days,” he explained.

Sankar said the Conservation Authority is in the process of upgrading its stream gauges across the watershed to help municipalities better prepare for extreme weather events.

In the meantime, if you come across a wayward picnic table…

“I don’t know who south of us has some picnic tables, but if they want to return them they’re more than welcome to,” said Lilbourne, half jokingly.