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Cover Story

Duct taped in David Miller's Toronto

By Judi McLeod
Friday, august 26, 2005

Toronto--Usually loquacious summering city politicians had little to say about the horrendous damage caused by the rainstorm that hit Toronto one week ago today.

The mainline media carried pictures of cars, recognized only by their rooftops, floating down roads and stories of Etobicoke homeowners having to literally swim to safety out of the windows of their own homes.

In Scarborough, the parking lot of Canada Free Press clients started to fill up when storm drains failed. The parking lot water rose to beyond thigh level. Before it was all over, water trapped in the parking lot came gushing through the office building's front door, causing thousands of dollars of damage. The same clients returned home only to find more serious water damage.

Nobody can do much about freak storms, but much of the damage came from vulnerable water mains, caving in to heavy rainfall.

The word from City Hall is that it will take roughly four months and about $5-million to repair the damage. But some experts are now saying they will be surprised if $5-million will even begin to cover the costs.

Infrastructure rotting underfoot is a big problem in Toronto.

Rotting infrastructure has become a political football with one level of government charging it's the fault of the other. Meanwhile, little is being done to repair and strengthen it, and taxpayers have come to understand that as much as we have a democratic deficit in Canada, we also have an infrastructure deficit.

In Canada and the U.S.a. there are some 700 watermain breaks a day and devastation is the result when Mother Nature comes along to kick in.

The aging and too small-pipes keeping our roadways together were completely overwhelmed last Friday, causing roads to buckle as seen in pictures posted here.

Local authorities last January ignored Toronto Sun reporter Rob Granastein, who documented information proving that Toronto's $52-billion worth of aging infrastructure is being held together by so much duct tape and bailing wire.

Pictures posted showing the horrific damage at the Finch and Black Creek area were sent to CFP by an area resident who was photographing the storm with a digital camera from the 11th floor balcony of a high-rise.

With the permission of www.watermainbreakclock.com, you can see a slideshow of the images by clicking here.


Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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