Heavy rains and flooding make a big, sloppy mess in Corner Brook

Heavy rains and warm temperatures, combined with a lot of snow already down on the streets of Corner Brook, created flooding, washouts and road closures across the city Wednesday.

"Our crews were hopping all over the place yesterday," Mayor Charles Pender told the Corner Brook Morning Show.

"We plan for the worst, hope for the best Ithink we had a little of both yesterday."

Environment Canada reported that 28.3 millimetres of rain fell in the city over the course of 36 hours.

Main Streetmess

The Main Streetbridge closed twice on Wednesdayto traffic and pedestrians, asworkers cleared a sloppy mix of ice and snow from blocking the Corner Brook Stream from flowing underneath.

• Flooding closes Main Street and Petries Street bridges in Corner Brook

"That's the lowest part of the city ...water tends to accumulate there," said Pender, addingthe area is well-known to cause problems, and workers were ready.

The second closure came after Deer Lake Power informed the city it needed to release water from its Three Mile Dam upstream, sending an additional foot or so of water down towards the bridge.

"As the water comes down, it carries more ice down, so we had an excavator there to break that up," said Pender.

More rain, more problems

As the downpour continued throughout the day, rain and ice blocked more bridges and caused washouts, somein areas the city had never had problems with before.

Some of the affected areas included:

• O'Connell Drive, closed due to a flooded culvert nearby at Rivervale Road
• Reports of homes flooded in the Mt. Batten Roadarea, and in Curling
• Petries Street, closed due to flooding fromCurling Street to Hilliard's Road
• Washouts on theRiverhead Road area
• Washouts on Boones Road and Walbournes Road

Pender said the damage was happening quicker than crews could respond.

"Once a culvert blocks, it backs up very quickly, so you only have minutesto get there. And unfortunately, it takes a while to get a backhoe or excavator across the city," he said.

"So by the time we find out that there's an issue, the damage is already done."

Ice on the way

According to Environment Canada, temperatures rose to 10 degrees in Corner Brook Wednesday, but the warm weather has since departed, leaving behind other problems potholes and ice.

The snow took a significant hit as well.

Marble Mountain remained closed on Wednesday, to try and groomthe remaining snow on the mountain in advance of the weekend.