April 27, 2020

2019 FLOOD BUT FOOTNOTE IN LOCAL LORE

BRACEBRIDGE — A year ago today the Heart of Muskoka was knee-deep in flood waters.

This morning it was high and dry — as we deal with a deeper, deadlier spring uprising.

Bracebridge Falls had barely a trickle of water falling under its iconic bridge.

Compared to the cascades that overwhelmed the Muskoka River in 2019 — causing millions of dollars in damages to houses, shorelines and farms in the Kirby Beach area west of town past Santa’s Village as it flowed into Muskoka Lake — April 27, 2020 was picture of blissful, sunny tranquility that drew pent up pandemic pedestrians to it.

Mary Jane Hardcastle and Morag Doyle sat at picnic table nearby; Ralph Webbe and his wife Barbara Kozel came down from the Drumkerry condos overlooking the falls; and across the way Wayne Fitzgerald was just happy to be out walking the boardwalk at Kelvin Grove Park.

Last year all four would have been swimming in forest flotsam as Bracebridge Bay rose a few metres.

And why the ease, if you please this year?

Better water management by the MNRF and a gentler snow-melt seem obvious.

A $5 million provincial fund and a public management team announced shortly may have contributed.

Today the flood is but a footnote in local lore.

Leaving one to ponder what if there was another flood amid the COVID-19 crisis.

How would communities all around Muskoka — which similarly suffered — have handled it?

Would the affect have been worse?

Would troops leaving LTCs bail us out? Would cottagers still flee north?

We’ll never know — luckily.

Thankfully, damages once so devastating a year ago only linger in diminishing returns now.

Today, we deal with a far deadlier spring challenge as we anticipate a summer of potential discontent.