The spring flooding that terrorized much of Renfrew County this year was solely on the shoulders of nature. Earlier this year the province hired Doug McNeil as a special advisor to look into the flooding and provide a full report back to the government. McNeil’s report simply says that there was nothing more that we could have done and the flood was caused by natural events. John Yakabuski, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry and our local MPP says he know it’s hard to swallow but he hopes local residents will find some closure.
Yakabuski notes that McNeil found that nothing that pointed to human error or the negligent operation of water control structures as the cause of the flooding, and that the government and its partners were effective at reducing and mitigating flood risks. McNeil confirmed that this year’s record-setting flooding in many parts of the province was caused by a combination of weather conditions such as colder-than-average winter and spring, higher-than-average snowpack, lack of significant winter thaw, rapid snow melt and significant rain events in the spring.
