Tim Rivers was shocked to return to his abandoned car Tuesday and find a parking ticket slapped on it — after pushing it out of a flooded lot during Monday’s storm.

The $105 ticket was all the more shocking because, he says, police told him to leave his car overnight after learning that it broke down.

“The officer said: ‘No, lock it up, leave it there for the night and deal with it in the morning, because you won’t get a tow truck tonight,” said Rivers, 53.

Monday’s massive storm ravaged the GTA, dropping more than 100 mm of rain and causing blackouts, transit delays and widespread flooding.

“What may have happened is that parking enforcement officers weren’t aware of the instructions provided by the police officers,” suggested Toronto Police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray. “There was no note left on the car saying, ‘I was told to leave my car here by this officer.’”

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Rivers, who lives in Burlington, spent Monday at High Park with his son Adam, who lives in the area.

Just after 6:30 p.m., he went to pick up his car in a High Park lot off Spring Rd., west of Parkside Dr. and just north of Lake Shore Blvd. W.

The lot is beside a pond, which had begun to overflow.

“I came out to the parking lot knee-deep in water.”

He tried to start his car, but “it was sputtering and spewing out water and not sounding good.”

He asked a passing cyclist to help push his car to higher ground, then called his son for help.

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He then asked police officers if he should get a tow truck, but after their assurances, he went to his son’s home for the night. The car was left on a grassy patch with a slight incline right outside the lot.

When Rivers went out Tuesday at about 7:30 a.m. he saw that the lot had drained and he’d been left with the $105 ticket.

His first thought was: “Ridiculous.”

“I just thought, I can’t deal with it now,” said Rivers, who was more concerned with getting a tow truck. “It really added insult to injury.”

Rivers and others who received tickets that don’t seem fair have the option of filling out a dispute application form, but Gray says they should check out the ticket cancellation guidelines, too.

“They should definitely complete that form and provide that explanation, and certainly it will be reviewed, given the extenuating circumstances of last night,” Gray said.

Rivers said there were four or five other cars left in the lot, and that he bumped into another man who’d been ticketed.

Rivers knows you can’t park overnight in that lot, but is at a loss to explain what the parking enforcement officer was thinking.

“Anyone that was there overnight had no way of getting out. How ruthless can you be?”

The 2012 Mazda 3 sport hatchback was his first new vehicle.

“It’s been a horrible morning,” he said. “The people at the body shop are telling me that the car’s probably a write-off.”

As for the ticket, Rivers says, “I’m not going to pay it.”