Thunder Bay families still dealing with flood impacts

Lake Helen’s Ron Kanutski cautions others flooded in Thunder Bay and area to be careful when having their damaged homes repaired.
“One of the things they tried to talk me into was just cleaning my stairs and my wood posts inside (the basement),” Kanutski said. “I said if you threw everything else out, like my shelves and my washer and my dryer, why would you say cleaning wood is sufficient?”
As a result of his questions, Kanutski has received new metal jack posts to replace the wood posts and is expecting a new set of stairs to be built soon.
“My basement has been cleaned and the majority of the wood has been removed except the stairs because they need to get up and down right now,” Kanutski said. “The wood on the walls and the wood posts have been taken out.”
Kanutski and many other people were flooded in Thunder Bay after a May 27 thunderstorm flooded the Atlantic Avenue Secondary Sewage Treatment Plant, which serves about 108,000 residents.
Disaster relief forms are available at the clerks desk in the City Hall lobby and on the Thunder Bay website at www.thunderbay.ca/flood.
“It’s very important that residents who don’t have insurance or have inadequate coverage fill out these forms as accurately as they can, providing as much documentation as possible, and that they drop off the forms before the deadlines,” said Rebecca Johnson, Thunder Bay’s acting mayor.
Thunder Bay’s Safe Home Clean-up Program is still available to help with flood-damaged basements. More than 520 homeowners have registered for clean-up assistance through the City’s Facilities and Fleet Department, working with contractors.
“There are still homes needing assistance as of today,” said Michael Smith, general manager of Facilities and Fleet, on June 25. “We visited several homes throughout the weekend and continue to help those still requiring assistance.”
Kanutski said his furnace is not likely to be replaced until September because supplies are “so backed up.”
“I was fortunate because I had insurance,” Kanutski said. “They’ve been really good to me — my structure is being looked after.”
Kanutski said a chemical spray was used to clean his basement.
“It only takes about half an hour to an hour to do the basement cleaning,” Kanutski said. “But it took several days for it to just sit down there to dry. They (brought) big dehumidifiers in to dry out the basement.”
Kanutski was enjoying the May 27 thunderstorm that caused all the problems, at least until he looked into his basement.
“I was enjoying the thunderstorm, looking at the lightning and looking at the water filling up the streets when I finally realized if it’s not going down the drain, that’s a bad sign,” Kanutski said. “So I went and looked downstairs and that was when I realized it was over a foot deep.”
Kanutski said other families in his Robertson St. neighbourhood had from three to six feet of water in their basements.
Thunder Bay city council declared the community a disaster area on May 30 to access funding from senior levels of government.
Numerous areas in Thunder Bay were affected by flooding, including Northwood, Intercity and parts of Westfort and James St.