It could take months before Woodbine Beach is back to normal.
Strong waves and days of heavy rain have turned parts of it into a small lake.
They have also submerged most of the volleyball courts as well as vast tracts of sand along the boardwalk.
“I was here a couple days ago and they had done fantastic work pumping out a bit of this water and some of it was drying out but the wave action from yesterday has made the lake bigger than ever and has taken out some of the volleyball courts and more importantly just reduced the size of this beach,” Mayor Tory told CP24 prior to receiving a tour of the flooding on Saturday morning. “We will have to see what happens with the winds and the waves and the work they will do next week. But there is no question it restored some of the damage that had been fixed in previous days.”
The Manager of Waterfront Parks, James Dann, tells CP 24 water levels are expected to be higher than normal for at least the next month, making any temporary fix to the flooding virtually impossible.
He said that once water levels do subside, city crews will be able to pump away water and hopefully restore the beach to its former glory.
“We are dealing with the lake. There is nothing we can do from a sandbagging perspective. We have already tried with the heavy equipment to move the sand around to create natural barriers. Until that lake level goes down we are going to see the ponding that is taking place, though,” he said. “After that we are not sure about how long it will take the pond to go down in levels. We will be pumping later on in the season but right now if we were pumping it would just be coming right back in with any storm.”
The beach volleyball season at Woodbine Beach was scheduled to begin on Monday.
With files from CP24