Chapter 2. It didn't happen. It could never happen here. Every day is remembrance day

 I think recalling "remembrance day" before the day shows signs of awareness, don't you?

 So, I am remembering my friends and their families who suffered through the great flooding in Germany 2 years ago - how time flies. But wait. A few days ago the TV was full of the great flooding in Toronto 10 years ago. What? I was living here in Ontario then - I don't recall any flooding - did not happen!

Here is a link to a CBC report 

Use this  "Toronto flooding July 2013" in a suitable search engine if you need more "proof",

 So on that Thursday in July we had 2 friends visiting us - ironically living less than 40km from the flooding that would happen 8 years into the future and they would not experience anything more than a lot of rain. 

On this day in 2013 I do not recall rain and my photo diary shows us admiring waterfalls around Bracebridge. Try googling Bracebridge and flooding and you may be
surprised - I was - at the number of years Spring flooding has been a catastrophe there.

My photos from July 8, 2013:

And compare this to an event in April 2019;

Bracebridge is 45min north of me and Toronto 90 min south, approximately.

So what am I remembering? The frailty of humans, their minds, their memory.

And what I wanted to mention in this chapter is Hurricane Hazel!  My wife and I experienced this "live" as children - Vicki was actually isolated for a couple of days when highway #7 flooded at the railway underpass - CN? - and where a branch of the Don River crossed the road. 

 Here is a link to photos of the bridge

They were without electricity, However, in those "good ol' days" they had a wood stove and food, and welcomed neighbours on their island - yes, Jeff, there were turtles on "their" island, too.

 

Hurricane Hazel entered Canada/Ontario in the evening of October 15/16, 1954.

 

Here is a link from which the following was taken

"Floodwaters slowly rose in Holland Marsh – a bowl-shaped valley near Bradford – allowing people to escape to the town.^[47] Highway 400, which passes through the marsh, was under as much as 10 ft /3 m of water in some places when as much 6 m  of water backed up. Much of the crops in the area were either swept away or ruined.^[48] After the water pumps failed due to debris, better equipment allowed the Holland Marsh to be drained by November 13."

 Here are some photos I took soon after I returned to Ontario in Spring 2010.

Heading south, approaching the Holland Marsh at the bottom (east to the left, west to the right):

 Can you imagine the road ahead under 3m of water?

 All this to the west covered to a depth of 3m of water -  it would not be drained until early November. Looking west for the next 3 images:

Now is the Bradford highway really affordable, Doug Ford? The blue water drops represent places of severe flooding:

Some mood music, please:

I wanted to share my experience with my European friends. Shared experiences mean more, don't you think? However, my Indigenous friends remind me that they have experienced flooding, too. They told those who would listen that there was a time when they could walk to Manitoulin - now an island - from what is now the north end of the Saugeen/Bruce peninsula from what some  now call Tobermory - the well of Mary, actually located on the Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. How the invasive species brings names to their brave new world.

I do not have their (Indigenous) story and so can not tell it. However, the invasive species does confirm it:

Geology and Landforms of Grey & Bruce Counties
The Bruce.Grey Geology Committee
Published by The Owen Sound Field Naturalists
page 139: Underwater features - Recent research
Underwater landforms of Fathom Five National Marine Park (Tobermory)

Of course, "we" have abolished memory work in schools since it is a) unnecessary, and b) faulty! And of course we all know, it couldn't happen here.