CONCERNS OVER LAKE NIPISSING FLOOD WATERS REMAIN HIGH
Mother Nature has the Lake Nipissing shoreline residents worried and city sta ers scrambling to pitch in with sandbag brigades working at two West Ferris locations.
The first sandbag filling station was opened on Sunday at Sunset Park near Lake Nipissing. One day later, a second filling station was opened at Champlain Park, at the end of Premier Road.
Monday night a city crew was busy at the Sunset Park location filling sandbags that were going out to residents almost as fast as they were being filled by city sta ers.
Scott Taggart is the operations supervisor for water waste and water services for North Bay. He was making the rounds on Monday night tracking the progress of the sandbagging e orts.
“Early response has been significant; both sites have been visited by many residents to get sand to bolster their shorelines against the rising levels of Lake Nipissing,” says Taggart. “We are going to play this day-by-day based o of demand. A lot of that will depend on the (weather) forecast,” says Taggart.
That forecast is not good as more rain is called for on the weekend, according to Environment Canada. Taggart says city crews will be ready.
“We are trying to be risk adverse here and ensure that we have a bit of a stockpile which we need to build up because the demand is pretty high.”
One of the sandbagging crew says 140 residents came to both sites on Monday in search of sandbags. On Sunday about 60 visited the Sunset Park site seeking sandbags.
Meanwhile, as part of the North Bay Mattawa Conservation Flood Forecasting and Warning Program, authority staff will continue to monitor weather and watershed conditions and update their messaging if needed based on the changing weather/streamflow conditions. Staff remain in contact with municipalities and other partners as required.
The public is advised of these messages through the nbmca.ca website with the flood status icon and a link to information about current conditions. NBMCA also circulates these messages to local media and social media, posting on X (@THENBMCA), Facebook (@THENBMCA) and Instagram (nbmcainfo).