With record high water levels on Lake St. Clair, Lakeshore is increasing its water level monitoring.
The town has upgraded its response level to 'enhanced activation' — meaning emergency services are on standby in the case of a disaster where a State of Emergency must be declared.
The town's Director of Engineering and Infrastructure Services, Nelson Cavacas says additional staff are already on the ground.
"A little heightened activity in the sense of increasing a little bit more monitoring where we're doing it twice a day, checking the levels in the areas along the shoreline," he says. "We've got some critical areas where the water levels are creeping up to the edges of roads. In some cases, they're already over top."
Cavacas says berms have also been put in place in some areas to keep roads open.
"There isn't anything in an emergency aspect right now. We were noticing water was getting into some of our drainage system that was going into some of our sewers and into our pump system. In some isolated areas we put some berms that were in low lying areas where water was getting on to the road," he says.
The town's Municipal Emergency Control Group is keeping a close eye on things as well according to Cavacas.
"We're having daily updates with the team to just be ever prepared in the event that we do get environmental conditions through wind or storm and rain that we have to activate immediately our emergency plans, we're ready go to," he says.
The town is also working closely with the Essex Region Conservation Authority to monitor the situation.
Lakeshore residents who live along the waterfront are also being reminded that sand and sandbags are still available, free of charge.
Over 80,000 have already been handed out.