Flooding reported in Cape Breton and western Newfoundland as storm stalls over region
CTV
Torrential rain flooded basements and washed out roads and bridges in western Cape Breton and southwestern Newfoundland on Wednesday, as a huge storm spent a third day slowly trudging over Atlantic Canada.
A state of emergency was declared late Tuesday in Cape Breton's Victoria County, where schools were closed and residents were warned to stay off the roads. The story was the same in Port aux Basques, the largest town in southwestern Newfoundland, where stories emerged about increasingly treacherous conditions.
Port aux Basques resident Ryan Moore was driving about 40 kilometres north of the town on Tuesday night when a section of waterlogged asphalt disintegrated beneath his pickup.
"Luckily, I got to the other side of it before it really let go," Moore said in an interview Wednesday. "The airbags went off, so I couldn't really see what was going on. I was just holding on, hoping for the best." Upon closer inspection with a flashlight, Moore discovered the washout had created a four-metre deep crater that was wider than the length of his truck.
"I just got woozy," he said. "It could have been a lot worse."
