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Sioux Lookout, ON –The Municipality of Sioux Lookout is taking further action to protect people and property as water levels continue to rise.
Further to its update to the pubic on Wednesday, May 18th, the Municipality of Sioux Lookout continues to take all actions available and necessary to provide support to residents and business owners impacted by recent flooding.
The Sioux Lookout Municipal Emergency Control Group (MECG) met on Friday, May 20th to further review and assess the local situation, and specifically the localized flooding being experienced in certain areas of the community, and Mayor Lawrance declared a State of Emergency.
“The rationale for declaring a State of Emergency is twofold: first, we wanted to ensure that residents would be able to access available resources and their insurance coverage by underscoring the seriousness of the localized flooding in Sioux Lookout,” explained Mayor Lawrance, adding, “and second, in the unlikely event that the Municipality may be able to access Provincial resources to assist with infrastructure recovery efforts, we wanted to have the Emergency Declaration in place to facilitate such access if and when it becomes available.”
“Our Public Works Department, with the assistance of staff deployed from other departments, have been working tirelessly to mitigate the impact of flooding throughout the community, and have been continuing to make sand bags available to the public,” noted Municipal CAO Michelle Larose.
Larose also explained that the Municipality of Sioux Lookout is continuing to working with the Province to have the Municipality designated a flood area. If the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing declares Sioux Lookout a flood area, individuals may be eligible for the province’s disaster mitigation relief funding, the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians program. Details are available at https://www.ontario.ca/page/apply-disaster-recovery-assistance.
Those seeking funding will need to apply directly to the Province, but must first exhaust any insurance coverage they are entitled to. We will update the public if the Minister makes this declaration.
In the meantime, it would be helpful to know how many property owners have suffered damage to their principal residence or business. Please contact the Municipality to share this information at 737-2700 during regular business hours. You may also email [email protected] to share your information.
Finally, please note the following reminders and updates:
- Please remember not to drink water from the lakes, or from wells that may have been compromised due to the flooding situation;
- when enjoying boating or other water-based recreational activities, please remember that there is a lot of debris in the area lakes due to the flooding - this debris can be a hazard to boaters; additionally, given the high-water levels, markers may have moved, rocks that are normally visible may be covered, etc. We also ask boaters to refrain from coming too close to shore to avoid creating waves onshore which can exacerbate the impact of flooding in low-lying areas
Finally, please continue to be alert, be safe, and be kind to your neighbours.
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For more information, please contact:
Michelle Larose, Chief Administrative Officer
807-737-2700 or [email protected]
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