Leslieville resident Sonya Vahidy and her neighbours had high hopes their homes, which are located in an area prone to flooding, would be better protected this summer.
“Sadly, we feel let down,” Vahidy said, as she showed CityNews the damage left behind in her basement following that major rain event on Sept. 3.
“All of my neighbours have the same issue and it’s not the first time,” she said. “In 2024, and again now in 2026 we’ve had two devastating floods that have completely flooded our basement in two to three inches of water.”
This recent storm has left residents like Vahidy asking questions.
“For years there’s been so much talk about all the money that has been spent on flood mitigation projects that have either been completed or are underway. But here we are again with the same issue and we don’t know why?” she said.
One of the most touted has been the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s (TRCA) Port Lands Flood Protection Project, designed to protect southeast Toronto neighbourhood homes from flooding due to overflow from the Don River. It has a price tag of more than $1.2 billion.
“I would just like some more transparency about exactly how that flood mitigation program is supposed to work and why, in this case, it appears that it did not?” Vahidy asked.
A spokesperson with the TRCA said the Port Lands project did work as intended during the September storm. It’s designed to address a different type of flooding, known as riverine flooding. Riverine flooding occurs when water levels in the Don River rise high enough to overtop riverbanks and inundate surrounding lands.
“The flooding experienced by many residents in Leslieville and South Riverdale during last week’s storm was primarily associated with urban flooding, which occurs when intense rainfall overwhelms local drainage infrastructure, such as storm sewers, catch basins, and overland drainage routes,” the TRCA spokesperson said.
Size of storm and city infrastructure to blame
The reason many homes, not just in South Riverdale, but other parts of the city experienced basement flooding is due to outdated city infrastructure that was unable to keep up with the size of the storm.
“Some parts of the city experienced a storm event that was greater than a 100-year storm event,” said Lou Di Gironimo the general manager of Toronto Water. He said that amount of rainfall in a short amount of time overwhelmed aging city sewer systems.
“And we know about this problem, which is why for the past several years we’ve been working on fixing it.”
Di Gironimo said to date, the city has spent $1.3 billion in its basement flooding protection program, which has already launched projects in some parts of the city with many more areas to be targeted over the next several years.
“We are ripping out old sewers and putting in much larger sewers. We’re creating underground tanks. We’ve done that in some communities,” he said.
Di Gironimo points to flood mitigation work done in the Willowdale neighbourhood, which in 2005 during a similar storm event saw thousands of homes flooded. That number was greatly reduced in this recent storm.
But he admits the city has a very long way to go before other neighbourhoods, including South Riverdale are protected.
“But I’m quite comfortable saying that we’ve got one of the most proactive basement flooding programs in North America,” Di Gironimo said. “The challenge is how quickly can we get the construction projects done? Quite honestly, the homeowners want us to go faster. We fully understand and agree, but there’s only so much work we can do with the dollars we have.”
He said over the next 10 years, an additional $2.3 million has been allocated to prevent basement flooding but crews face limitations. He said a big challenge in getting to certain neighbourhoods — in a rapidly growing city — is coordinating projects so they don’t interfere with other construction already underway.
While Di Gironimo was unable to give a timeline on when South Riverdale will see newer infrastructure to prevent flooding, he said the city recently enhanced its Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy Program, which offers up to $6,650 to help homeowners pay for flood mitigation systems in their homes.
“Which could help pay for everything from sump pumps, to even backup power so if you lose electricity your sump pump will still work.”
As for Vahidy, she’s done all of the work on her home to prevent flooding. They’re now working to install backup power.
“But in these big rain events, will it still stop the water? We aren’t so sure,” she said — which is why she and her neighbours are pleading with the city to fast track its plan to update the sewer systems in their neighbourhood.
“Enough with the talk, let’s see action,” she said. “We don’t want to live in this kind of fear. I’m really hoping we don’t have to go through this again.”
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