Sarnia's erosion-prone Lake Huron shoreline was battered again Thursday night as a Halloween storm created high winds and waves.
City Construction Manager Rob Williams surveyed the Bright's Grove area shore Friday morning.
"The wind has changed to west which is a good thing," said Williams. "It was quite a night, we got multiple breaches in the shoreline in a number of areas. The shoreline is not doing the best right now with that kind of wind combined with the high waters. It's really wreaking havoc with our shoreline."
Williams said they were putting some more cones up and barricades between Helen Avenue and Kenwick Street.
Old Lakeshore Road at Bright's Grove. November 1, 2019. (BlackburnNews.com photo by Colin Gowdy)
"West of Helen we've had a little more erosion at the top of the bluffs that were okay kind of at the bottom, so it's going to need some addressing. And the section of Old Lakeshore Road from Marion, Remo to Brigden {Road] is still open. We lost a little bit of the rock that we did last week in a rush preparing for this kind of storm, so right now we're okay as far as the road goes but we are keeping an eye on things."
Williams said there's also erosion west of Mike Weir Park, and that efforts to shore up all the affected areas are being hampered by the availability of rock.
Wind gusts nearing 70 kilometres an hour were recorded at Chris Hadfield Airport late Thursday night.
Environment Canada said the highest gust in Ontario was 129 kilometres an hour at Port Colborne on the north shore of Lake Erie.
The St. Clair Region Conservation Authority's flood warning remained in effect Friday with the D'Arcy McKeough Dam in operation to protect Wallaceburg from severe flooding.
Darcy McKeough Floodway. (Photo by St. Clair Region Conservation Authority)
It's only the eighth time in 36 years that the dam in south Lambton County has been used.
It diverts the north branch of the Sydenham River westward down a seven kilometre channel to the St. Clair River.
The authority said up to 100 millimetres of rain had fallen over two days.
Water levels in Wallaceburg were slowly receding Friday but several locations across the watershed were still seeing rising levels as the rain moved through the river system.
The process of reopening the McKeough Dam gates began early Friday afternoon.