A storm cell stormed the town of Caraquet, New Brunswick Saturday afternoon. In a short time, the amount of falling water of over 100mm surprised many.
The city of Caraquet’s construction manager, Bruno Landry, says he’s never seen anything like it in his 37-year career.
The roads were made out of the rivers. “I was there and I was very, very surprised at the amount of water that fell in such a short time,” he said. The number of millimeters lost in an hour is just incredible.
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caraquet
Photo: Courtesy of Gaétan Haché
While the citizens of Caraquet were caught off guard by the rain, the surrounding regions remained dry.
Saint Léolin, Anse-Bleu and Grand-Anse received almost nothing. “It was really aimed at us,” says Bruno Landry, who adds that one of his staff in Tracadie reported some rain, but nothing more. It’s quite a strange system.
While Saturday’s rains did not result in the closure of major roads, they did cause damage to several roadsides.
Some are minor, others larger […] There are many places that need repairing, Bruno Landry confirmed on Sunday. There is a lack of soil and there are other situations that require digging to clean pipes.
The city will begin repairs on Monday. She does not know at the moment whether there was damage on the side streets.
However, some citizens have reported damage to their land and the city plans to contact them on Monday.
Why caraquet?
Storm cells, accompanied by light winds, moved very slowly in central and northern New Brunswick this weekend.
Among the other heaviest precipitations, more than 80 mm of rain suddenly fell north of Saint-François in Madawaska during the night from Friday to Saturday. The rain caused another landslide in the area and forced the closure of a temporary bridge.
Jean-Marc Couturier of Environment and Climate Change Canada confirms that Caraquet is the region hardest hit by the rains.
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Storm cell in Caraquet, New Brunswick on July 15, 2023.
Photo: Courtesy of Sonia Chiasson
The affected area was rather small: the storm cell extended in a rectangle with a wingspan of 10 km long and about 5 km wide, thus sparing the surrounding villages.
The town of Caraquet is more urban and its concrete and sidewalk surfaces are less able to absorb such precipitation. According to the meteorologist, this would explain that certain streets and parking lots of shopping centers looked like rivers for a while on Saturday.
After the rain had abated on the Acadian Peninsula on Sunday, other regions of the province are now also preparing for it.
Much of central and southern New Brunswick is forecast to experience 40 to 70mm of rain overnight Sunday through Monday. Rainfall levels could reach up to 20mm per hour.
We were a little less prepared
Elsewhere in the country, bad weather caused several problems this week. Torrential thunderstorms, torrential rain and at least one tornado swept through southern Quebec on Thursday.
Ottawa was not spared from the bad weather in Ontario either: Hundreds of houses were destroyed.
Although Environment Canada issued thunderstorm warnings for New Brunswick on Saturday, Bruno Landry said no one expected the amount of rain in Caraquet.
Normally when it announces a heavy storm we’ll have a storm that lasts 15 or 20 minutes, but there it was a deluge of an hour. “We were a little less prepared,” he said.
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The grounds of Caraquet City Hall were also hit by rain on Saturday.
Photo: Courtesy of Sonia Chiasson
According to Bruno Landry, communities need to prepare for this type of weather more than ever.
If it had lasted two hours it would have done a lot of damage, that’s for sure, he said. Municipal infrastructures have to change and adapt to the situation.