Note: This is the second part of an account of the 1934 spring floods on the Grand River and its tributaries.
Hugh Templin, in the March 29, 1934 issue of the Fergus News Record, cautioned that he did not wish to raise unnecessary alarm, but conditions on the river were then the most dangerous he had ever seen. Ice in the river had partially melted in a mild spell at the beginning of March, and then piled up at several points and frozen solid when the temperature dipped suddenly.
In Centre Wellington, the worst spots were at the Ninth Concession of East Garafraxa, at Glenlamond, just upstream from Monkland Mills in Fergus, and at Elora, above the dam at the Fleury-Bissell plant. Over the night of March 26 and 27 a late snowstorm had blanketed the area with a foot of heavy, wet snow. A rise in temperature would produce much more water than the river could handle.
Ice had piled up farther downstream in early March. Now, with a potential crisis on their hands, municipalities on the lower Grand acted on March 28 and 29. Crews attempted to dynamite the ice piled up at Galt and Brantford to minimize the potential of high water in those flood-prone cities.
In Guelph, conditions were much less acute. The city engineer, with a huge force of temporary workers at his direction, had cleared all the ice chunks from the Speed during the thaw earlier in the month. Still, he hoped for a gradual melting and runoff, and like other officials, feared a major rainfall.
There was little else anyone could do, other than to keep their fingers crossed and hope for a slow, gradual melt. The worst prospect was a heavy rainfall. With the ground still frozen, very little would soak into the ground, and the rising water in the Grand and its tributaries would certainly bring destruction and mayhem with high levels and ice chunks.
Many people dismissed the prospects of major flooding, believing that the ice piled up in the river was “rotten,” and would break up easily and float away. But the most seasoned observer, Robert Kerr of Fergus, observed that “All we need is 12 hours of good rain” to produce a major disaster.
It was clear to those who knew the river that a spectacular flood was in the offing. The four Toronto daily newspapers, highly competitive at that time, all sent reporters and photographers to capture the scene. The Globe published front-page photos of the ice pilled up at Elora and elsewhere.
According to the records that river watchers had assembled, it was the first time that there were significant ice jams near every important town on the Grand. The worst possibility was that the ice jams above Belwood would be the first to break. That would cause all the other ice jams downstream to break in sequence, amplifying the floodwaters each time. With additional flows from the various tributaries, there would be a massive wall of water at Galt and points downstream.
As March turned into April it seemed that the Grand River Valley would be extremely lucky in 1934. Snow and ice melted slowly, raising the level of the Grand and its tributaries. Then things took a bad turn on April 2, when the ice jams started moving and breaking up.
The first town to suffer major flooding was Drayton. Packed ice jammed above the Wellington Street bridge forced flood water to take an alternate course via Wood Street on Sunday, April 1. The next morning a crew of volunteers, armed with an armful of dynamite, succeeded in breaking up the jam, and sparing downtown Drayton from a flood.
The strong sun of April quickly melted the accumulated snow and ice. At Brantford the dykes along the river held. Most of the ice there floated downstream harmlessly, but the huge flow of water raised the Grand above its banks, and for a time threatened a railway bridge at the southern end of the city. Galt also suffered flooding, but less than might have been the case, thanks to the dynamiting of piled ice.
The upper reaches of the Grand and its tributaries, which were largely spared during the thaw in early March, were the most seriously threatened this time. Rampaging waters destroyed a bridge at Grand Valley, and badly damaged the Main Street span there, which had been built after the 1908 flood swept away the old one. At Waldemar, the Canadian Pacific bridge over the Grand was in danger. The river was 18 feet above normal there. Water flooded over Highway 9, closing that route for three days.
With masses of ice still in the river, the Grand rose dramatically on April 4 through Fergus and Elora, overflowing its banks and flooding low-lying areas and basements on Elora’s Mill Street. Monkland Mills in Fergus had to shut down its turbine due to the high water.
Things came to a head shortly after noon on April 5. The big ice jam at Waldemar broke, and the huge volume of water behind it rushed down stream, moving, in places, faster than a man could run.
There were close calls to the bridge at Belwood, and to the Canadian Pacific railway bridge downstream from there. The wall of water and ice gained new force when it hit Glenlamond, just above Fergus, where blocks of ice had been strewn since the earlier thaw at the beginning of March.
It was a miracle that the flood passed beneath the Townline Bridge (better known today as the Scotland Street-Gartshore bridge) with only minor consequences. Other floods, in previous years, had claimed that bridge three times. The sight and sound of the river was frightening as the flood roared through the narrow gorge in downtown Fergus.
Alerted to the coming wall of water by telephone, people in Elora dropped what they were doing and went down to the river to watch the show. Fearing the worst, management at the Elora Furniture Company sent its employees out of the firm’s riverside building. Town employees stood by to close the Victoria Street bridge, should it be damaged.
The Grand, already three or four feet above normal, produced a continuous roar as the water rushed over the Bissell dam and downtown dams and into the gorge. The sound changed to a crashing noise as the blocks of ice hit the upper dam, at the Fleury-Bissell plant. Miraculously, as the ice blocks rushed downstream, there was no pileup at the Victoria bridge piers.
The river rose to less than three feet beneath the bridge, and the occasional piece of ice scraped the undersides of the four spans. The noise, as the ice and water slipped over the lower dam and down into the gorge, was mind-numbing.
Hundreds of people watched the show. Many feared that the Tooth of Time, the islet rock beside the mill that was Elora’s iconic symbol, would not survive.
The frightening show lasted only a few minutes. The large blocks of ice passed over the dam, and then the water level dropped dramatically. The spectators, relieved that the bridge had survived and that damage appeared to be minimal, broke into cheers.
The water level remained well above normal for several days, but the big danger was over. For a couple of days “The Flats” area of Pilkington Township, below Elora, looked more like a lake, and when the waters receded there were blocks of ice scattered everywhere.
It was something of a miracle that neither Fergus nor Elora had suffered significant damage. On the positive side, the floods of 1934 strengthened the resolve of both governments and conservationists to tame the Grand’s floods. But there would be many delays until the Shand Dam near Belwood went into service in 1942.