POWER BACK 11 DAYS LATER

TORONTO — The nightmare is over for residents of a Mississauga condominium.

Power was finally restored at 3351 Cawthra Rd. around 4:40 p.m. on Friday, 11 days after a historic rainstorm created numerous flash floods throughout the GTA.

Flooding played havoc with the building’s power equipment, which was in the ground below the drenched basement garage, costing most residents their cars to a toxic mix of oil and sludge.

For the next one-a-half weeks, the homeowners, many of them elderly, were left without air conditioning in the middle of a heatwave.

“It feels like a bad dream; everybody is on edge,” one resident said several hours before power was restored.

“It’s a shame because we are not animals, but we’re living like we are,” said another, fighting back tears inside her sweltering apartment.

While homeowners appreciated that they were in the midst of a disaster, many wondered why more wasn’t done sooner to make them more comfortable, particularly with temperatures soaring, and why they weren’t kept more in the loop as to when power would be restored.

An emergency generator didn’t arrive until six days after the flood and it was used to light the hallways and to power emergency smoke detectors.

Besides the damage in the parking garage, some residents are dealing with water that came in from leaks from above. Others have floors that are damaged due to the moisture.