Sackville flooding closes roads, leaves 650 residents stranded

The Town of Sackvilleestimates about 650 people in the communityare stranded today,due to flooding.

The town has been forced to close several roads after heavy rainfall over the weekend.

Flooding in the southeastern New Brunswick town has closed the following:

• Route 106 to Dorchester
• Route 935 to Wood Point
• St. James Street at Lorne Street
• Dufferin Street
• Lorne Street, from Dufferin Street to Allison Street

Most of New Brunswick endured periods ofheavy rainover the weekend, particularly in southern New Brunswick.

Bowser's Construction on Lorne Street is under water. General managerGiles Beland spent the morningbailing the building out, again.

"This is twice now in six months," he said.

Beland says it's time the town rethink its priorities.

"This is what we do, we do utility road work, water and sewer and we have to bail out water from our own yard because the sewers can't handle a situation where heavy rain fall, tide levels come in and this is the result."

"It's like putting lipstick on a pig," he said. "If you can't get your infrastructure working it doesn't matter how shiny a park you have down town, or a shiny town hall, and if everything underneath is not working, it's not working."

Senior manager with corporate projects for the town,Jamie Burke, agrees it's time something is done and says they are working on it.

"It's really a combination, the town will need to do some work in terms of ditching to help water to move more quickly, we will need the provincial government to help ...and we'll need CN to assist with some culvert crossing underneath the rail line as well. Sowe're really going to need to come together inorder to come to a solution," he said.

Peter Coade, a CBC meteorologist, said the rain that fell in the last 24 hours was the remnants of tropical storm Bill.

The highest rainfall amounts recorded in the last 24 hours were:

• Alma: 112 mm
• Grand Manan: 82 mm
• Lepreau: 71 mm
• St. Stephen: 58 mm
• Fredericton 45 mm