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“This is where we have to stop it. We stop it here or we don’t stop it at all.”

Among the volunteers was Corrie Van Walraven, a resident of Kehoe Street for 19 years. She did so much sandbagging Friday, she threw out her back. If the berm fails badly, she’s guessing she would have two metres of water in the basement.

Photo by Ashley Fraser / Postmedia

To prepare, the cellar has been emptied, except for the furnace and she’s keeping fingers crossed. “This is the worst it’s ever been. If it comes over the wall, there’s nothing we can do.”

There are already worrisome signs that the wall, which cost about $800,000 and was built to withstand a 100-year flood, is not perfect. Water was leaching or leaking through parts of the berm, creating a stream by the Britannia Beach Apartments.

Under the guidance of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, residents had started a second line of defence a few feet behind the first wall but sandbagging such a massive area is a huge undertaking. And it isn’t clear it would hold up.

Bay Ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh arrived on her bicycle to get an update, quickly discovering her thin gloves had a hole in the finger, only adding to the bone-chilling cold.

“I’m concerned that this berm is not going to hold up,” she said. “These are extreme conditions. I’m seeing the water flow around it and that’s pretty scary.”

She then hurried off to a briefing about efforts to protect the Britannia Water Treatment plant on nearby Cassels Street. It purifies water for about half the city so any impact on operations could be catastrophic.