Nine years after the worst flooding Toronto has ever seen, the damage it caused in Deerlick Creek has yet to be cleaned up.

It’s a fading memory now, but the torrential thunderstorm of Aug. 19, 2005 unleashed 103 millimetres of rain on parts of the GTA in 60 minutes, twice the amount that fell in an hour during Hurricane Hazel.

Small creeks became raging torrents within minutes, washing out bridges and retaining walls, most notably a bridge on Finch Ave. that closed the street for months while it was rebuilt.

It was a once-in-100-years occurrence that caused at least $250 million in damage and devastated many small creeks and watercourses essential to the city’s stormwater system.

Repairing the damage hasn’t even begun in Brookbanks Park, near the Don Valley Parkway and York Mills Rd., where Deerlick Creek is still littered with debris from the storm.

A reader reported on SeeClickFix that retaining walls along the banks of the creek south of Brookbanks Dr. collapsed during the storm and are still scattered across the creek bed.

“The entire creek is an utterly dilapidated, polluted mess, but this particular section is the worst,” said the reader, describing it as “a filthy cesspool of rubble and litter.

“No effort has been made to address this unacceptable state of affairs. All the concrete should be removed from the creek. This isn’t a dump, though it sure looks like one.”

We found large sections of wire-encased stones meant to withstand serious flooding strewn along the creek bed, along with boulders, chunks of cement and fallen trees.

Repairs to other water courses damaged by the storm were completed years ago, so what’s taking so long at Brookbanks Park?

STATUS: Bob Crump, manager of North York parks, said cleaning up the creek and rebuilding its banks “is on the radar. We have a city-wide capital program to address erosion prevention issues in watercourses and ravines, but the money only goes so far and other urgent priorities were identified during the last audit of these sites. Unsightly messes were deemed to be lower priorities than impending safety hazards or imminent potential damage to park infrastructure.” But they’ll take another look at the creek, “to see if accelerating erosion should cause it to be moved ahead in the priorities.” In other words, there’ll be no cleanup any time soon.

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