This photo from October 15, 1954 shows cars driving along Blair Road through Grand River flood waters, caused by Hurricane Hazel. The photo was taken by Harold Kingle, and is now part of the Cambridge Archives Collection.
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.
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.
After going missing in early June, 2024, the historic plaque in Victoria Park in Cambridge is back where it should be.
Cambridge Today reports that the historic bronze plaque was found nearby, and reinstalled by city crews this week. It’s located along Blenheim Road, opposite Mount View Cemetery.
Other plaques that went missing simultaneously still haven’t been found.
A front-end loader carries people over Grand River flood waters in downtown Cambridge, Ontario, on May 17, 1974. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at City of Cambridge Archives
The last big flood of the Grand River through Cambridge happened May 17, 1974, leaving behind $6.7 million in damages.
Nobody died, but several people were rescued from the surging waters by firefighters, police and bystanders. One man was pulled from a tree in mid-river by helicopter, according to news clippings at the City of Cambridge Archives.
The Grand River Conservation Authority produced this film about the 1974 flood.
The river peaked at 4.8 metres – 16 feet – above normal level and inundated much of downtown Cambridge.
Remembering the Flood of 1974
Fifty years after the 1974 flood, an event remembers the flood and talks about emergency preparations for future disasters. The free event runs May 4, 2024, at the Cambridge Fire Hall Museum and Education Centre, 56 Dickson Street, beside Cambridge City Hall.
Displays are open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., says Ingrid Talpak, one of the organizers.
Grand River flood waters creep up Dickson Street at Ainslie Street on May 17, 1974, in downtown Cambridge, Ontario. Photograph taken from the Cambridge City Hall tower. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at City of Cambridge Archives.
Displays will include rescue craft used today on local waterways. For example, a fire department airboat can manoeuvre through shallow water or crunch over winter ice.
The Fire Hall Museum partnered with Jane’s Walks Waterloo Region to offer several guided walking tours from the Museum to the Idea Exchange Old Post Office. They will highlight points of interest and high-water marks from the flood of 1974.
A Beautiful, Sunny Day in May
May 1974 had been unusually wet. On Thursday, May 16, an overnight thunderstorm dumped 50 mm of rain across the saturated Grand River Watershed.
Upstream reservoirs behind dams couldn’t contain all the rainfall. The Grand River Conservation Authority would later say it warned officials in Cambridge at 11 p.m. Thursday that high water levels were expected.
City officials said the conservation authority didn’t hint at how bad things would get, according to news stories in the Cambridge Daily Reporter newspaper on file at the city archives.
People wade across flooded Water Street at Main Street in Downtown Cambridge on May 17, 1974. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at the City of Cambridge Archives.
The last big flood in the Grand River came during Hurricane Hazel in cold October weather in 1954, twenty years earlier.
Friday, May 17 dawned sunny and warm. By 11 a.m., the river was rising. By noon, water was over the banks downtown – and still rising.
A man carries a bicycle over his shoulder through a 1974 flood over Water Street in Cambridge. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at the City of Cambridge Archives.
Businesses, churches and residents tried to move valuable items above the rising water. Citizens helped firefighters rescue people from the filthy water rushing through town.
Some downtown workers were trapped in the offices when they left for work. They didn’t learn about the rising water until too late. Some were rescued in the bucket of a front-end loader, which carried them over the flood waters.
A man drinks from a water fountain as Grand River flood waters rush past his knees on Water Street in downtown Cambridge, Ontario, on May 17, 1974. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at the City of Cambridge Archives.
A boil-water advisory later was issued, as government officials feared contamination of the drinking water system.
And on Water Street near Parkhill Road, a fire started in the former Hahn Motors car dealership near the river. Flames gutted the building as firefighters struggled to reach the building by boat.
Firefighters work at a burned-out car repair shop on Water Street near Parkhill Road on May 18, 1974. The building caught fire the day before, during a flood of the Grand River in downtown Cambridge, Ontario. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at the City of Cambridge Archives.
It took more than two months for downtown businesses to clean up and recover from the damage, according to Cambridge Reporter news clippings.
Cleaning up in a store after the Grand River flood on May 17, 1974, in downtown Cambridge, Ontario. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at City of Cambridge Archives.
21 Recommendations from Flood Inquiry
There were 21 recommendations from an Ontario government inquiry into the disaster. It heard 43 days of testimony.
Key recommendations included an expanded flood prevention plan throughout downtown. More than $20 million was spent on flood control and property purchases in the following 15 years.
A sign on the Capitol Theatre marquee makes fun of the severe Grand River flood on May 17, 1974 in downtown Cambridge, Ontario. Image from Cambridge Reporter Collection at City of Cambridge Archives.
For several years in the mid 1980s, construction crews blasted into bedrock to lower the river channel. At the same time, taller flood walls and berms rose along the river, with the goal of containing another flood of the scale of 1974.
The conservation authority and city blamed each another for delayed flood warnings at the inquiry. Judge Wilfred Leach absolved the conservation authority of blame at the inquiry. He also insisted on a better flood warning system.
That recommendation led to a network of water-level monitors across the watershed. Every year, flood coordinators in cities, towns, and townships across the Grand River watershed test the alerting system.
Flood Warnings Now on Social Media
The public part of the warning system began with regular releases to local newspapers, radio and television stations. Today, public outreach includes social media, email alerts and live river-level data displayed on the conservation authority’s website.
Every year, city public works crews also practice installing portable flood walls at ends of the three bridges along the Grand in Galt. The bridges are lower than the raised flood walls, leaving a gap in flood protection.
If high water is expected, city crews collect kits of pre-cut aluminum posts and logs. The posts are dropped into pre-made sockets in the road at each end of the bridge. In between, more sections are dropped into place horizontally. To waterproof and buttress the temporary walls in a real flood, thousands of sandbags would be filled and stacked behind them.
A map showing the extent of Grand River flooding on May 17, 1974 in Downtown Cambridge. Image from Grand River Conservation Authority and presented at a public information session about the flood on April 25, 2024, at the IdeaExchange Old Post Office library.
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