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While shoreline erosion is natural, this year’s record-high water levels – combined with bad storms whose winds can turn the water, especially in shallower Erie, into damaging walls of water – has raised the stakes, accelerating damage and heightening safety risks.

In Elgin County, for example, there have been problems both on high bluffs overlooking Erie and low-lying stretches along the lake.

Some roads in the drainage area overseen by the LTVCA have been closed because of flooding and erosion, and in Rondeau Bay, south of Chatham, parts of another road have been blocked amid safety concerns.

Chatham-Kent’s Talbot Trail and Erie Shore Drive are also closed.

“Erie Shore Drive is flooding daily,” said Wintermute. “The waves are crashing over the existing breakwalls.”

More than 100 homes along the road have been affected by flooding.

The fallout of shoreline erosion has been so strong in the region that Chatham-Kent – a low-lying area with a long Erie shoreline – recently declared a climate emergency.

The erosion could do long-term damage to tourism, agriculture and infrastructure and “worries people to no end,” said Trevor Thompson, a Chatham-Kent politician.

Worry is especially great along the local stretch of the Talbot Trail, which runs from Windsor to Fort Erie.

Parts of the road were moved 10 years ago in response to erosion, but the fix didn’t last long enough.

“You can see the impact with the cracks. The road is falling away there,” he said. “We have a 35-kilometre stretch of road that will disappear in the next 50 to 100 years.”