Victoria Road is one of a handful of roads that remains closed in Bridgewater, following the weekends heavy rain. Photo: Evan Taylor

Bridgewater saw the heaviest rainfall in Nova Scotia this past weekend, recording over 262 millimetres between Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning, which has left the town to deal with unsafe roads, flooding and other issues that could take months to fix.

Mayor David Mitchell is urging residents to be patient as the repair work will take time and happen on a priority basis, “A week, two weeks, a month from now if things aren’t back to normal I just ask that our residents remember what we went through and be patient,”.

The town will continue to update its traffic maps throughout the week as things reopen but as of Monday morning, there are still closures in place for Victoria Road (St. Phillips to High Street), Exhibition Drive (southbound only), and King Street  (between Veterans Bridge & Starr Street).

Mitchell believes in some cases where the roads have been closed it could take weeks to months in order for them to safely reopen.

A map showing the current road closure around Bridgewater, NS. Photo: Town of Bridgewater.

Although there are multiple flood-related issues around town Mitchell believes Bridgewater fared relatively well considering it saw the most rain in the province, “We have come out of this relatively fortunate, with the damage being limited to some of our roads and flooding in some areas, but thanks to the hard work of our town staff, volunteers and the community we were able to mitigate the damage,”.

The Mayor has been speaking with local MP Rick Perkins throughout the weekend and says he is in constant communication with Public Safety Minister Bill Blair working towards securing funding for recovery efforts from the federal government. “We know that the federal government is already preparing disaster relief funding and that is what we experienced in Bridgewater, a diasaster so our expectation is that we will be receiving support from them as well as the provincial government,” Mitchell said.

The flooding is not believed to have displaced many in Bridgewater, with Mitchell telling our newsroom when he spoke with CKBW late Monday morning he had not been made aware of any families that needed to leave their homes within town limits.

Over the weekend the town also received multiple calls about the town water supply and if it was safe to consume, Mitchell was happy to report that the town’s water systems worked flawlessly throughout the weekend and water passed safety testing all weekend.

As for other issues facing the community, Mitchell noted that the continued closure of Highway 103 between Chester and East River means all transport trucks are being forced to detour which may cause delays in some goods coming and going to the area. As closures continue Mitchell says it is the responsibility of residents to check road closures and detours online prior to heading out.

He urges anyone who needs to travel to give themselves plenty of extra time to plan their route and to expect delays in the coming weeks and months as repair work continues.