Ward Nine Councillor to undergo house by house audit of Rideau/Roxboro

Gian-Carlo Carra is about to embark on an ambitious campaign to address the needs of some flood-weary residents who live near the river in Ward 9.

The inner-city councillor plans to go to door-to-door on April 12th in Rideau/Roxboro.

He’ll being doing an audit of homeowners with the Canadian Red Cross to assess their specific needs ahead of the melt.

Carra knows all too well about the damage from last June, it was 10 months ago that he showed 660News just how much of his backyard had been swallowed up by the Bow River.

Sewage seeped into the basement of his Inglewood home displacing his family.

“Thanks to hundreds of volunteers, we were back in our home a couple days after the evacuation order was lifted,” he says “Our basement remains bare {with only the essentials of a new furnace, hot water tank, washer, dryer and freezer) as we weigh our options.”

“People are in tenuous situations, they are economically stretched as they try to rebuild their lives, they are emotionally stretched because it’s been a tremendous hardship,” Carra adds.

According to the two-term councillor, the river could flood again and it has many in Rideau/Roxboro (one of the hardest hit areas) nervous and keeping a close eye on the water levels.

“People are extremely frustrated and I would say… freaked out.”

Carra believes many people are getting back on their feet and worries if we get knocked down again, we won’t be as resilient the next time.

Flood mitigation projects are in the works but some could take years to complete.

“What I’m hearing from my residents is we need to figure out what kind of temporary measures we can put in place to protect Rideau, Roxboro and Erlton from a flood event if it’s going to come down the river this year, next year or the year after that,” he says.

He’s been told by city staff there are tremendous engineering and legal barriers to putting in place a temporary system of dykes.

Carra’s asked city staff to have an information pamphlet in place that can be handed out and/or to develop an invitation to an open house where they can discuss what kind of temporary measures they can do to protect their properties.

“There’s a number of things we can do and I think it’s very important for people to have a maximum amount of information as they deal with the emotional strain of another flood season coming at us.”

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