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People living in Bruce County and the surrounding area are dealing with high water levels that have flooded roads and basements following a couple of days of warm weather.
The town of Paisley, where the Teeswater and Saugeen rivers intersect, has seen the waters rise forcing the closure of one highway into town.
“I’ve never seen it this bad. We’ve only been here for five years but our road is closed because it’s underwater,” Graham Cubitt said. “I talked to someone yesterday who has lived here for 20 years and they haven’t seen the water this high.”
He co-owns the Paisley Mill, which he said currently has eight feet or 2.4 meters of water in the basement.
“We got lazy because we hadn’t seen water like this for years, and stuff was stacked there, so we’re going to have to do a whole lot of cleanup now. It’s easy to forget this can happen,” Cubitt said.
On the left, a look at the significant flooding behind the Paisley Mill, which Cubitt and his wife have owned for five years. On the right, a view of the Teeswater River from Bruce Road 1. The mill property backs onto a floodplain of the Teeswater River, a tributary of the Saugeen River. (Graham Cubitt/Facebook)
County officials issued a warning Wednesday urging people travelling to be cautious if they encounter flooded roads, as moving and deep water could sweep vehicles off the roads.
They said their road maintenance crews were working with the Ontario Provincial Police to help with localized flooding.
Flooding has been a concern across southwestern Ontario this past week when temperatures rose into the double digits following a winter with significant snow.