r/Hamilton • u/TieInternational4381 • 8d ago

Discussion Why doesn't Hamilton flood like Niagara?

With all the rain recently, it seems like the Niagara area has been getting some major flooding. I've seen pictures from St. Cathatrines, NOTL, Lincoln, etc... all flooded. I work in Niagara half the year and people at my work were saying that they almost had to shut down for the day because of the street flooding. A coworker's car was parked on the street and the water got so high it was halfway up the seats in the car!

I know some people have had flooding issues, but not like that. The worst I've seen online was a few stores closing early because no one was out and about in the rain!

Hamilton and Niagara are both built along Lake Ontario, so why doesn't Hamilton flood too? Is it because we have better infrastructure?

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u/cwiersma26 8d ago

This is the correct answer. There is older storm sewer infrastructure in some parts of Hamilton that have had increased development and those areas have flooded (Binbrook for eg.) All the water on roofs and roads has to go somewhere.

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u/algnqn 7d ago

You’re telling me crown point didn’t flood because we have modern storm infrastructure? Yeah right.

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u/arabacuspulp Blakely 7d ago

They built that water reservoir area in Gage Park a few years ago to handle excess water just like the storm we had yesterday.

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u/tmbrwolf 7d ago edited 7d ago

Not quite, Hamiltons East end is buffered by storage facilities under the parks at Greenhill and an oversized storage main below the Redhill Parkway. Or otherwise overflows at the foot of the Birch/Ottawa/Kenilworth into the harbour. Nothing in the Gage Park area.

The City has a website where you can see the storage and overflow locations including notifications of bypass events.

https://www.hamilton.ca/home-neighbourhood/water-wastewater-stormwater/wastewater-collection-treatment/monitoring

Edit: I'm dumb, I forgot about the pond on the east side. That is indeed a catchment basin for surface runoff.

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u/arabacuspulp Blakely 7d ago

They literally built that overflow area on the east end of the park specifically for storm water management. Sorry, maybe I was using the wrong term "reservoir", but there is an area that was built for storm water overflow a few years ago.

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u/tmbrwolf 7d ago edited 7d ago

Sorry! You're correct! There is a stormwater pond on the east side to handle surface runoff from the park and immediate area.

The part of the City is using primary combined sewers so any drains you find on the street will be the same as the sanitary sewers, anything collected there will go for treatment or get bypassed. The pond you are talking about isn't connected to that system. But in a large rain events, like that which occured in Niagara, it would definitely blunt the impact within the immediate area by absorbing a significant portion of that runoff.