Corktown Common - Great timing...

[js97]

Talk about good timing? and a great way to have it 'tested'. 2 weeks to completion and we have one of the wettest nights in the history of Toronto.

almost Serendipity like.

 

[k10ery]

Actually I would have thought the obvious question is: Has the flood protection landform made things worse? DVP floods twice in a month. When has that ever happened before, anybody know?

It seems possible that by protecting all that development in the Don lands we've eliminated too much of the river's natural floodplain.

Any thoughts?

 

[ShonTron]

Actually I would have thought the obvious question is: Has the flood protection landform made things worse? DVP floods twice in a month. When has that ever happened before, anybody know?

It seems possible that by protecting all that development in the Don lands we've eliminated too much of the river's natural floodplain.

Any thoughts?

The problem isn't Corktown Common - that's actually part of the solution. What will mitigate further flooding is the renaturalization of the mouth of the Don. Right now water is forced to make a 90-degree turn in a hard, man-made channel south of Lake Shore to enter Lake Ontario. In their natural states, rivers don't make 90-degree turns in concrete and steel. So water backs up and floods.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

DVP flooding is commonplace even during small storms before the WDL FPL.

AoD

 

[taal]

I really hope someone had pictures from yesterday ! Its not "great timing" if it didn't do the job ; - )

 

[DSC]

DVP flooding is commonplace even during small storms before the WDL FPL.

AoD

Yes, Corktown Common is certainly part of the solution but it is not all of it. The TRCA has plans with WT and the City to do a bit more work south of King Street to remove obstructions and (as Shon Tron says above) when the 90 degree (man made) mouth of the river at the Keating Channel is sorted out it should be easier for the river to drain into the lake faster. There is in fact an overflow route planned for situations just like this.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

DSC:

Yes, I was at the LDL EA meetings - there will be some kind of equivalent flood protection landform along the east bank of the Don along Don Roadway, and at completion of the LDL plan there will be 3 outlets for the Don - Keating, the new naturalized river channel within the Portlands and the south spillway. That said I believe the Richmond Hill tracks and the yards might still be flooded.

taal:

Under hydraulic modelling, St. Lawrence would be hit by flooding in an event like this (Hurricane Hazel is a 100+ year flood, and we have more than matched that from the signs of it) - the fact that it didn't is probably a good sign that it did the job.

AoD

 

[k10ery]

The problem isn't Corktown Common - that's actually part of the solution. What will mitigate further flooding is the renaturalization of the mouth of the Don. Right now water is forced to make a 90-degree turn in a hard, man-made channel south of Lake Shore to enter Lake Ontario. In their natural states, rivers don't make 90-degree turns in concrete and steel. So water backs up and floods.

Yes and no. In fact, the hydraulic modelling for the FPL concluded that: "The containment of the flow that would normally spill to the west would raise water levels on the east bank of the river, downstream of the CN Rail bridge. "

But as Alvin points out, floodiong of the highway was expected even before the FPL. It's just a bit worse now.

I really hope someone had pictures from yesterday ! Its not "great timing" if it didn't do the job ; - )

No pictures but as it happens I was standing on top of the FPL at 5:20 pm yesterday - at which point we decided to just run for it and take the soaking A great vantage point to watch the storm blow through. I just wish they'd made the roof on the shelter a bit bigger.

 

[RocketAppliances]

I really hope someone had pictures from yesterday ! Its not "great timing" if it didn't do the job ; - )

Check out the West Don Lands webcam from yesterday: http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/webcameras

Impossible to tell what happens after dark but the rail corridor looks dry and the "wet side" of the berm looks pretty far from the swelling river until that point.

(Watch out for the spider @ midnight!)

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Well, we got first person report - from GraphicMatt on Twitter:

Matt Elliott ‏@GraphicMatt 11m

By the way, just walked through Corktown Common and it is open for adventure and not even really that wet. Let's build more of these.

AoD

 

[MisterF]

Build a highway in a floodplain and it's going to get wet.

 

[Tulse]

Build a highway in a floodplain and it's going to get wet.

But the area is so flat, and that river is so tiny...surely nothing can go wrong!