A report going to Essex Council indicates the town's infrastructure operated as designed, but the magnitude of rainfall during a flooding event in Harrow and Colchester significantly exceeded the design standards.
On September 24, 2025, the Town of Essex experienced an extreme rainfall event that affected the hamlets of Harrow and Colchester, resulting in localized surface and basement flooding.
Shortly after, council asked administration to report back on the drainage system along County Road 50 from Erie Road to County Road 41 to find out the number of drains, capacity of drains, and whether council has any ability to implement drainage works without a petition from residents.
The information report now coming back to council Monday says that while council has the authority to initiate drainage works, it would impose significant costs onto all the lands and roads in the watershed that would not be reasonable or economical to implement and would come at such a large cost that it would not be practical to impose on residents.
The report recommends that any required or requested improvements to municipal drains in the impacted areas be initiated by the users of the drain.
Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy says when we flood in the rural areas, a lot of time people just want to point the fingers.
"At the end of the day, it's a user-pay system, so I want to be sure residents know if you want to increase your flooding capacity, you essentially have to pay for it," she says.
The areas hit during the September 2025 storm were also heavily impacted during a heavy storm in August 2023.
"We're going to continue to be investing, but it's never going to be fast enough. It's almost like a cloud system likes to hang over our area," she says.
Bondy says if residents in rural areas want to increase flooding capacity, they essentially have to pay for it.
"We're going to look at what we can do. I'm always going to look at what we can do going forward. At the end of the day, everything costs a lot of money in the town, and whenever we raise taxes, people talk about how unaffordable that is," she says.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) reported rainfall totals exceeding 190 mm (approximately 7.5 in) in the Harrow region over a 24-hour period during the September 2025 storm, which is among the highest one-day totals recorded in recent history, according to an administration report.
ECCC reports a total of 56.8 mm (2.24 in) of rain fell during the 11 a.m. hour during the storm.
Bondy says the town did apply for a $1 million grant from the Ontario government's Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program-Health and Safety Water Stream to improve their pump station in Harrow, but the application was not approved.
Bondy says they plan to speak with Essex Conservative MPP Anthony Leadri to find out why they weren't successful.