Willola Beach mail carrier flooded out of home, not job

Mail carrier Rob McClenahan was doing his rounds in Willola Beach Monday, the same neighbourhood where he lived until last Thursday, when flood waters trickled up through the floorboards.

McClenahan has been living at his brother’s house since then. His well was compromised and his septic tank backed up.

All of the drywall and floorboards will have to be replaced, his furniture and electronics were up on pallets and milk crates, but even some of that has been damaged. But even so, McClenahan hasn’t stopped delivering the mail each day — at least to those homes still reachable.

“We’re talking to the insurance company. We had limited coverage, $40,000. But they’re saying no,” he said. “It might be a teardown.”

Willola Beach is near Fitzroy Harbour below the Fitzroy dam. It is a combination of cottages and permanent homes on the water side. While the homes across the street are safe, many of those on the water side have been menaced by the flood waters.

In some places, firewood and other debris tossed about by flood waters have littered the roads. Outside one cottage, water has crept up to the windowsill on the first floor. Outside another, a child’s play structure was halfsubmerged with a pirate flag still snapping in the wind.

Neighbours all along Moorhead Drive have been pitching in. Volunteers, some from Kanata and Barrhaven, have helped bag sand and distribute water bottles.

Dave MacKay has repurposed his docks to form a walkway to get to the front door of his cottage. He opened up a hatch on the floor to show the water in the crawl space. All his furniture has been lifted off the floor on milk crates, but there has been no serious damage to the cottage.

“A bunch of volunteers came in here yesterday. They were like a tornado,” said McKay, who has been sandbagging since April 18. “The firefighters have been wonderful. They have been helping until well after dark.”

Buying flood insurance for his lot was prohibitively expensive. But he said the worst is over.

McKay has lived on the Ottawa River all his life and has never seen anything like this. “This is the 100year flood. This is historic.”

Flooding has damaged waterfront properties all over the Ottawa Valley.

Jennifer Murphy, the warden of Renfrew County, said homeowners on Round Lake and Golden Lake have been particularly hit hard, as well as those on the Madawaska River from Bark Lake all the way down to the township of McNab/Braeside, although none of the municipalities in Renfrew has declared a state of emergency. Paramedics have helped nine vulnerable people leave their homes.

Many of the waterfront residences on the water are seasonal and some people have not gone to their cottages to sandbag. About three-quarters of the residences on Golden Lake are seasonal, she

We’re talking to the insurance company. We had limited coverage, $40,000. But they’re saying no. It might be a teardown.

said.

“It’s not going to be a good May 24 weekend,” Murphy said.

At Kasdorff ’s Cottages on Golden Lake, 12 out of the 14 rental cottages are in six inches of water, said Stephanie Mundt, daughter of owner Marion Zohr. This despite the efforts of Zohr’s family of seven sisters and one brother, as well as firefighters.

All of the Victoria Day reservations had to be cancelled, said Mundt. But she still hopes that the cottages, which were built 60 years ago by her grandfather, can be saved after the water recedes and they’re aired out.

“They have sentimental value,” she said.

McClenahan said his home may be gone, but he still sees a reason to look on the bright side.

“I don’t have a tag on my toe. So everything’s fine.”