Holy Flooding - Toronto under water

[Red Squirrel]

What's funny is people figure it's only like a foot of water and they'll be fine, but they don't notice the fact that the road is actually going down and they are going deeper. I've never driven in water like that with a car before but I'm guessing you hit a point where the engine just completely stops. Then you're screwed.

 

[Eug]

Would they be fine in 1 foot of water?

I'd turn back at under 6 inches, because I'd be afraid of water entering through the doors and soaking the floor carpet.

 

[jaedaliu]

What's funny is people figure it's only like a foot of water and they'll be fine, but they don't notice the fact that the road is actually going down and they are going deeper. I've never driven in water like that with a car before but I'm guessing you hit a point where the engine just completely stops. Then you're screwed.

They typically stop when they suck in water when they mean to suck in air. Water can't compress like air, so the engine stops working. A car with a high mounted CAI can go through deeper water, but something with a snorkel would work best.

I hope summer ends quickly for you canadians. Otherwise the snowmelt will make the flooding worse.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Would they be fine in 1 foot of water?

I'd turn back at under 6 inches, because I'd be afraid of water entering through the doors and soaking the floor carpet.

I personally would not take a chance myself, but I suppose with a big car or a truck you'd probably be fine if you go slow. With a small car, yeah I don't know. But the people dumb enough probably figure it's nothing and just go. :biggrin:

 

[Ichinisan]

canada hogging all the rain

No.

NO.

It has rained here in GA every single day for over a week.

Not just a little, A LOT. I'm actually surprised my apartment building is still standing.

 

[mmntech]

I personally would not take a chance myself, but I suppose with a big car or a truck you'd probably be fine if you go slow. With a small car, yeah I don't know. But the people dumb enough probably figure it's nothing and just go. :biggrin:

General rule is if it's deep enough to cover the exhaust, it's impassible. Most cars, vans, and SUVs sit too low. I might attempt it in an pickup, truck, or Jeep but only if I knew exactly how deep the water was.

Problem with flooding is it can wash the roads out, and since the water is so dirty, you'd never be able to see it. So that water that only looks a foot deep could actually be hiding a huge sinkhole.

 

[Exterous]

Wow - really glad my connecting flight in Toronto was on Sunday night when the whole things was just starting. We toyed with the idea of coming back on Monday and am glad we didn't

That's one of the signs of life the scientists are always talking about. Maybe Canada will be next for exploration.

Time to start colonizing!

Pix, including an underwater Ferrari:

Since Toronto is now a sea do salvage rights apply?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah pretty much, it seems to me that's often what happens, they think the road is still flat and there's a dip, and whoops! People need to just stay home, really. Guess lot of work places arn't allowing it so people still have to go to work.

Trains also don't do very well in it.

Which makes me wonder, how fast did this flooding occur? I can't see them running the trains if there's a flood so seems this happened pretty fast then? Or the rail was fine all the way to a certain point and they could not stop fast enough? Not like a train can stop on a dime.

 

[mmntech]

Which makes me wonder, how fast did this flooding occur? I can't see them running the trains if there's a flood so seems this happened pretty fast then? Or the rail was fine all the way to a certain point and they could not stop fast enough? Not like a train can stop on a dime.

Richmond Hill Go Train goes along the Don River, which floods fast. Always been a flood plane.

Rain started between 4:30 and 5pm and came down really hard in the north end, then pushed south. Flooding started around 5. Power outages started around this time. By 5:30, a lot of roads and underpasses were submerged. Don River burst its banks around 6:30 in the north end of the city and all that water flowed south, submerging the train and flooding the Don Valley Parkway. Most of the rain fell in that 2hr span.

 

[Eug]

General rule is if it's deep enough to cover the exhaust, it's impassible. Most cars, vans, and SUVs sit too low. I might attempt it in an pickup, truck, or Jeep but only if I knew exactly how deep the water was.

Problem with flooding is it can wash the roads out, and since the water is so dirty, you'd never be able to see it. So that water that only looks a foot deep could actually be hiding a huge sinkhole.

Reminds me of this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZWMVwcHAr4

Which makes me wonder, how fast did this flooding occur? I can't see them running the trains if there's a flood so seems this happened pretty fast then? Or the rail was fine all the way to a certain point and they could not stop fast enough? Not like a train can stop on a dime.

When I left home from work it was about 4:45 or so IIRC, and it wasn't even raining. By the time I got home after about 50 minutes (which is a lot longer than it usually takes), some of the streets were ponds. Down closer to the lake by that time downtown, some of the low points had a couple of feet of water. Then there was another storm shortly after. In the first couple of hours there was over 90 mm of rain, then by 10 pm there was 126 mm.

Also, some people who had flooded basements said it happened in minutes. They had NOTHING in the basement, and then all of sudden 2 minutes later the entire basement was flooded because of a sewer backup.

To my surprise it turns out a LOT of homes in Toronto do not have sewer backflow valves.

 

[silverpig]

General rule is if it's deep enough to cover the exhaust, it's impassible. Most cars, vans, and SUVs sit too low. I might attempt it in an pickup, truck, or Jeep but only if I knew exactly how deep the water was.

Problem with flooding is it can wash the roads out, and since the water is so dirty, you'd never be able to see it. So that water that only looks a foot deep could actually be hiding a huge sinkhole.

There's a picture taken near the airport where a car's back end was sticking up in the air with its rear wheels off the ground. There was what appeared to be a few inches of water along the shoulder, but it was really a washout/sinkhole. The car's front right tire fell right in, and the car ended up sticking up in the air at about 20 degrees!

 

[Eug]

More pix:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/flooding-in-toronto-slideshow/

There's a picture taken near the airport where a car's back end was sticking up in the air with its rear wheels off the ground. There was what appeared to be a few inches of water along the shoulder, but it was really a washout/sinkhole. The car's front right tire fell right in, and the car ended up sticking up in the air at about 20 degrees!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/flooding-in-toronto-slideshow/to-storm-photo-1373332018538.html

 

[Red Squirrel]

Richmond Hill Go Train goes along the Don River, which floods fast. Always been a flood plane.

Rain started between 4:30 and 5pm and came down really hard in the north end, then pushed south. Flooding started around 5. Power outages started around this time. By 5:30, a lot of roads and underpasses were submerged. Don River burst its banks around 6:30 in the north end of the city and all that water flowed south, submerging the train and flooding the Don Valley Parkway. Most of the rain fell in that 2hr span.

Wow so that happened within like an hour then. Crazy stuff. Really not much time to react especially for a train that can only go one way. It's not like you can make a U turn and go back. :awe:

 

[Red Squirrel]

To my surprise it turns out a LOT of homes in Toronto do not have sewer backflow valves.

I keep telling myself I need to install one. I'm on high enough ground, but you just never know... Would be a huge job though, need to find where the sewer comes in, break up the concrete put in a sump pit and install the valve so I can access it from within the sump pit (in case it fails, gets stuck, etc). But the 1-2k I spend doing that would be better than the 10k+ to redo the whole basement.

 

[mmntech]

There's a picture taken near the airport where a car's back end was sticking up in the air with its rear wheels off the ground. There was what appeared to be a few inches of water along the shoulder, but it was really a washout/sinkhole. The car's front right tire fell right in, and the car ended up sticking up in the air at about 20 degrees!

That's probably Kipling at the 409. Lots of flooding in that area. They've still got some of the highway ramps up there shut down for repairs.

 

[Eug]

I keep telling myself I need to install one. I'm on high enough ground, but you just never know... Would be a huge job though, need to find where the sewer comes in, break up the concrete put in a sump pit and install the valve so I can access it from within the sump pit (in case it fails, gets stuck, etc). But the 1-2k I spend doing that would be better than the 10k+ to redo the whole basement.

10K to redo a basement is cheap, and for a full-on reno with decent finishes is near-impossible unless you do the work yourself or the place is really small. For my basement reno, the city house assessor guy said the cost would range from $30000 to $60000. I spent more though, cuz I did things like redid the slab, knocked down support walls, and went crazy adding stuff like granite counters and custom cabinets.

Anyhoo, I'm not sure why you mentioned the sump pit. The valve is just a valve that replaces a segment of your main sewer line. Mine is inside the basement. Sure if you need a sump pit that's fine, but that's a different issue. (I am not a plumber, however.)

Note that in Toronto there are rebates for installing these. There are also rebates for sump pumps, etc. Dunno about other places.

 

[Eug]

 

[CZroe]

No.

NO.

It has rained here in GA every single day for over a week.

Not just a little, A LOT. I'm actually surprised my apartment building is still standing.

Actually, going on 2 weeks.

 

[Eug]

This was the road beside our friend's townhouse yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57cIJRSgsxo

 

[kevinsbane]

To my surprise it turns out a LOT of homes in Toronto do not have sewer backflow valves.

Engineers sometimes jokingly refer to home basements as "tertiary stormwater storage". Oddly enough, flooding basements has an overall positive (!) effect on stormwater management on a large scale. That being said, I doubt engineers intentionally decided to not put in backflow preventers.

 

[Imp]

Our shit pipe has only ever backed up hardcore once and that was decades ago.

Not sure we want to test our luck. That back-flow valve sounds like a better idea than flood insurance since we sit on high ground. Biggest concern is the shitter backing up.

 

[Eug]

For the backflow valves, you can get ones with a clear housing so you can see what's going on without opening up the cleanout (which would be a bad idea if the sewers were overflowing):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMBznnNV-ss

 

[Mermaidman]

The Ontario used car market is going to be interesting for a while.

 

[Imp]

Apparently, flooded cars are considered "scrap" so shouldn't ever be resold?

 

[Eug]

Yes but there were a ton of used cars from the United States salvaged from Katrina that were resold.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/n...by-hurricane-sandy-lure-unwitting-buyers.html