Tecumseh residents were invited to attend two open houses Wednesday, where information about hindering future basement flooding was presented.
Held at L'Essor Secondary School, town administrators and Public Works' engineers sought to explain how residents can protect their houses in concrete ways.
The town will be offering two subsidy programs for flood prevention work. The first involves disconnecting foundation drains and installing a sump pump system where none currently exist. The second requires installing back water valves if none are presently in place.
Tecumseh resident Judy Bilargeon, who's house was flooded, says the meeting was helpful. However, she is still worried about it occurring again.
"It is nerve-wracking,"says Bilargeon. "I don't think you can ever be completely assured that it won't happen again."
Bilargeon says she is following the town's advice.
"We have done everything since the flood we had," says Bilargeon. "Our sump pump was working fine but the water came up through the drain. So we have now installed a back water valve."
Chief Administrative Officer for the Town of Tecumseh, Tony Haddad, says the municipality will continue to invest in flood prevention measures.
"We can not control the weather but we certainly can control what we do in preventative measures," says Haddad. "We seem to be experiencing more major weather events through climate change so we need to do whatever we can to protect our properties."
Tecumseh resident Ron Hebert, whose basement also fell victim to last fall's downpour, says he learned a lot from the open house.
"I understand that it is a once in a hundred year rain event but I wanted to understand it more," says Hebert. "Until this open house I never really understood the crossover between sewer and sanitary drains and stuff like that so it was nice to get all that information."
To date, over 300 applications have been received for the backwater subsidy program.