Facing the Change: Toronto grapples with the effects of extreme weather

The fall season of CBC Radio'sDay 6is underwaywithFacing the Change, a special series profiling five communities in Canada facing serious threats from climate change rightnow. The second instalment is Toronto.

Canada's largest city isn't immune tothe effects of climate change,Toronto government research has found.

In addition to sweltering hotJuly and Augusttemperatures this year,there are predictions that summer temperatures in Toronto could reach 44 C by 2050, according to Toronto's climate driver study.

Scientists say global warming is also causing more powerful downpours, droughts and rising sea levels.

Extreme weather has also hit Toronto in the form of massivestorms. In July 2013the city saw 126 millimetres of rain dumped in a matter of hours. The storm flooded subways and saw dozens of cars partially submerged in water and abandoned on major roads like the Don Valley Parkway. It also left tens of thousands of people without power.

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The stormflooded many homes, including that of Bev Silva, who didn't know her former North York home was on a flood plain when she bought it more than30 years ago.

Silva had dealt with repeated flooding for years, but in 2013 the cost of that repeated damage finally caught up with her.

"My daughter was alone in the house," Silva said. "She called me crying; she woke up in bed and the water was almost up to her knees."

In the basement, Silva could see a fridge floating in the water.

Because she'd had so much flood damage, Silva lost her insurance even though she says the flooding was caused by damaged city infrastructure.

'Immersed in water'

She says in her neighbourhood, whenever there was a flood, the water would just rise and there was no run-off.

"It was just a huge swimming pool. There was no grass, you couldn't see anybody's lawn, you couldn't even see the driveways or the curbs there was nothing, it was just immersed in water," Silva said.

Blair Feltmate, the director of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, said Toronto is only marginally more prepared for a similar storm now.

"There are programs todisconnect downspouts, and to provide backwater valves and sump pumps,for which the city deserves merit,he said. Butthey can only help so much.

"By and large the overall impact of a flood of equivalent stature today would be the same," Feltmate said.

And no matter what the rest of Canada might saymassive flooding in Toronto would be a problem for the whole country.

"If it shut down the financial district for an extended period of time or shut down the head offices of major corporations, the cascading negative effects of that would be felt across the country," he said.

Feltmate says Silva's story is becoming more common and that there's agrowing housing market that's uninsurable because of sewer backup flooding.

Power problems

Toronto is also a city of high-rise buildings, not all of which are prepared for extreme weather.

Roslyn Brown, a property manager of several low-income properties in the city, says power failures are a major concern. Renting a generator costs $10,000 a day, she said, and that just provides the tenant's most basic needs, like a working fridge.

"You know, if you live in a house and you have no power, you go to your sister; you go to your brother; you go to your neighbour. That doesn't happen at our buildings; these people don't have many contacts outside of where they live," Brown said.

David MacLeod,senior environmental specialist at the City of Toronto,saidthe city is developing guidelines for back-up power in residential buildings based on natural gas generators, which wouldn't run out of power.

Feltmate says the city needs these types of plans in place, if for no other reason than to ensure people can get out of their residences safely.

"We can't have a system that is management by disaster," he said.

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