To join the CBLCA Flood Subcommittee or ask questions, email Transportcblca@gmail.com

The CBLCA Flood Subcommittee, a branch of the Crystal Beach Lakeview Community Association’s Transportation, Infrastructure and Planning Committee (TIP) began to form organically in early July. It quickly became obvious that we needed something more formal—at least a group email list—even before the invitation article published on the CBLCA website. We are now 38 members. 

What a remarkable group! Articulate and well spoken, they began by introducing themselves and telling their stories and theories passionately and articulately. The stories are wrenching, yet sometimes the speaker (or writer) can seem quite detached, calmly presenting the details of a truly sad and exhausting experience. And, of course, everybody has at least one theory for the cause of the catastrophe! Diverse and educated, their backgrounds include engineering, politics and government, journalism, CBLCA and other community associations, emergency process—and even other floods.

I’m sure you’d enjoy the Flood Subcommittee, if you want to join and contribute.

We’ve only had one in-person meeting, although we’ll may do one on Zoom soon. To be honest, meetings take a lot of time and effort. You may not realize that Maki House is fully booked. Most of the committee’s work is done by email. The TIP has found that email is the most efficient way to work, if maybe not the most fun.

What is the Flood Subcommittee doing?

At first, the Flood Subcommittee was pretty chaotic, and to be honest, it’s still largely a matter of tons of emails and people doing whatever interests them. It has begun to sort out into some tasks we can get done quickly and some work that will be ongoing. The Flood Subcommittee will probably be a marathon, not a sprint.

The tasks and ongoing work we have so far are:

• DRAO—It seemed like an easy, obvious task. And it will be.
• Evaluation of City Emergency Response—Kathy Riley who has background and contacts in emergency response is heading this workgroup. We need to get this done while people remember what happened
• Community Surveys and Flood Timeline—Jeremy Laliberte, Bonnie Van Tassel, Joe Nowicki, and Bill McGee have indicated interest in survey deployment and information collection. Joe Nowicki has already done a lot of work preparing a survey. Jeremy Laliberte, a professor of Engineering at Carleton has set us up to work with his colleague, Dr. Jennifer Drake, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in stormwater and low-impact development., who had already researched the potential effect of rain gardens on Crystal Beach. You may have heard her on the CBC recently. You can read about her work at: Inside the measure researchers say could help lessen the pain of future Ottawa mega-storms
• Elections­—Attend electoral meetings and keep tabs on election news. For example, the other night, at an enviro-themed mayoral all-candidates meeting, Aryan Bajpai made sure our flood story stayed on the agenda. Whom will you vote for on Oct. 26 to get the best results for infrastructure?
• Connecting with Peers—Ruth Tremblay (Yes, that Ruth Tremblay—the former CBLCA president who kept the bridge out of Andrew Hayden Park and now lives in Kingston) is preparing a PowerPoint presentation to explain to our very large City who and where Crystal Beach Lakeview is, what happened to us, what we’re doing about it, and how other communities can work with us. Ruth will make her presentation at a general meeting of the Federation of Citizens’ Associations, September 16.
  We’ve already connected with some communities, but to be honest, we seem to be more organized than they are. They’ve been hit hard too. 
• Ongoing Research into Possible Causes and Preventive Measures—Some people at the Flood subcommittee’s Aug. 16 meeting seemed like obvious candidates for this work, but really, any of us and all of us will do ongoing research. We’ll monitor the media, learn new vocabulary and concepts and share articles we find with the group. Bernie Pilon, with his journalism experience, is finding out if there was anything different about staffing on July 1st that could be relevant.
• Ongoing Monitoring of City Policy and Meetings—It will take lots of us to monitor the news and see and share relevant parts of City agendas, minutes, and meeting videos.  Did you know the City is engaging a meteorologist to find out why Ottawa’s west end keeps having extreme weather events? Do you know when Moodie station will open. No? Neither does anyone else. But somebody, or all of us, needs to keep on top of what’s happening. 
• Communications—such as setting up meetings, taking minutes (as Bonnie Van Tassel kindly volunteered to do last time), keeping files of photos or reference materials, writing and reviewing articles—there’s lots of this stuff to do.
• More tasks as we finish some…

You can do as much or as little as you want. We will put occasional posts on this CBLCA website, but if you want to get the story straight from the email fire hose, and maybe help shape it, you’re welcome to join the Flood Subcommittee. Email Transportcblca@gmail.com