
This year, Cambridge, Ontario, residents remembered the last big Grand River flood on May 17, 1974, with a 50th anniversary event at Cambridge Firehall Museum and Education Centre.
It caused millions of dollars of damage in downtown Galt 50 years ago, but it isn’t the only flood anniversary this year.
October 15 and 16, 2024, marks the 70th anniversary of Hurricane Hazel in 1954, which drenched southern Ontario when it took an unexpected northern turn from the southern United States.
The storm killed 81 people in Toronto. Damage there was estimated at between $25 million and $100 million, or more than $1 billion, says the Canadian Encyclopedia.
Galt downtown flooded
In Galt, now called Downtown Cambridge, there were dozens of people rescued from homes along the Grand River by firefighters using boats.
No injuries were noted after the rainstorm storm flooded downtown Galt and washed-out sections of roads between Blair and Galt and Blair and Preston. The storm also destroyed the tent city at the International Plowing Match at Breslau.
The river rose four metres above normal and covered Water Street and Grand Avenue.
The Galt Evening Reporter on Monday, October 18, 1954, covered the flooding in detail, including eyewitness accounts of bystanders rescuing a Waterloo man from a submerged car on flooded Highway 97 east, and men on horseback saving a herd of cattle trapped by rising waters at the Cruickston Park Farm in Estate in Blair.
You must be logged in to post a comment.