Lakeshore residents attending an open house to talk all-things-flooding got an ear full.
The town held the meeting on Tuesday to discuss its Flood Defence Action Plan and to hear from an expert on climate change.
The expert, Blair Feltmate is the head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, warned the crowd that climate change is here to stay and residents need to adapt to the new normal of extreme weather events.
Resident Bob Swiatoschik has been flooded twice within a year. He is looking for answers to prevent it from happening again.
"I'm getting the water coming up my floor drain in the basement, I keep hearing people talking about checkvalves, I think I have one that is working well, it was checked out in September and was told it was working well I still got water again."
He is planning to take part in town's subsidy program to see if it will help.
"I am going to get my drains through the video camera, they have offered that free of charge until the end of the year, so I am going to take advantage of that and I am going to talk to the vendors here about the check valve to see if I have a problem with mine."
Feltmate meantime says climate change has happened, is happening and will continue to happen.
"The weather of the past is not a good predictor of the weather of the future," he says." Due to climate change the system has actually changed, even if you live in an area that for 30 years has never experienced flooding, that should not be interpreted as you can't have flooding going forward."
Feltmate says the increased flooding issues are not unique to Windsor-Essex as it is happening across the country. He says several factors are playing a role in more basements being flooded including climate change, more paved areas in cities, aging infrastructure and less wetlands.
- With files from Ricardo Veneza.