The mayor of a southern Ontario city is calling on the provincial and federal governments to immediately provide financial and emergency help after triggering a state of emergency due to flooding from two deluges in a little over a week.

St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe said the city activated a state of emergency on Monday after two recent days of heavy rains overwhelmed municipal sewer systems, backing up water into buildings and homes.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, record-breaking rainfalls hit the city, located in the Niagara Region south of Toronto, over the past week and a half, with close to 100 millimetres recorded on Sunday, and almost 50 mm on July 27, the previous Monday.

“I don’t think there’s a single municipality in Ontario that would be able to handle the volume of rain that we’ve gotten in over the course of 10 days,” Mr. Siscoe told The Globe and Mail.

States of emergency have been declared in St. Catharines and Lincoln, Ont., after two storms dumped more than 140 millimetres of rain. The heavy rain also hit Niagara Falls, Ont., where mayor Jim Diodati's own basement flooded.

The Canadian Press

While he could not provide the exact number of flooded homes, Mr. Siscoe said it’s in the thousands.

He appealed to upper levels of government for financial help and for the Ontario Corps, a provincially organized volunteer network, to be deployed. That support is needed because the city is exhausting its financial reserves and has used all available municipal staff to respond to residents’ calls for help, he said.

A spokesperson for Jill Dunlop, Ontario’s Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Response, said the Ontario Corps is being deployed to the region, but Mr. Siscoe said he hasn’t seen any of those volunteers yet.

The city needs help responding to elderly and vulnerable people living in homes that flooded a week ago, he said, some of which are filled with sewage or have begun festering mould.

“We need that help, but we needed it a week ago as well,” Mr. Siscoe said. “Every day that we delay is making life harder for people that have been affected.”

The neighbouring Town of Lincoln has also declared a state of emergency after receiving comparable levels of rainfall. Michael Kirkopoulos, the town’s chief administrative officer, estimated about 15 per cent, or 1,500, of the community’s 10,000 houses have been affected by flooding after what he described as hurricane-level volumes of rain.

While much of the water has subsided, the town’s infrastructure is damaged from sewer back-ups and overland flooding, Mr. Kirkopoulos said, adding that residents are angry and despondent, and looking for compassion.

“The community has faced a tough 48 hours,” he said.

Mr. Kirkopoulos said Lincoln has reached out to the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre, and also asked for support from Ontario Corps and the Red Cross. But he said he has yet to see provincial assistance on the ground.

“Aside from our own, we’re not getting troops,” he said.

Julia Facca, a spokesperson for Ms. Dunlop, said the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre is in contact with municipal emergency management officials in the Niagara Region.

“To support residents affected by the flooding, we are actively deploying Ontario Corps partners to co-ordinate the delivery of cleaning kits and have also made air purifiers available upon request to help dry out basements,” she said in a statement. “We will continue working with our municipal partners to closely monitor the situation and determine what additional resources are needed.”

Ms. Facca said the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is assessing the situation for eligibility under the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians program, which is intended to help residents with costs that are not covered by private insurance.

The federal government, meanwhile, says it is waiting for a formal request from the province before stepping in.

“The province of Ontario and affected municipalities are leading the response on the ground, and we are in close contact with provincial officials to monitor the rapidly evolving situation,” said Soraya Lemur, a spokesperson for Emergency Management and Community Resilience Minister Eleanor Olszewski.

While much of St. Catharines was dry on Tuesday, piles of garbage bags, soaked furniture and ripped-up carpet lined streets outside flooded homes.

Billy Hammond took the day off from his job at Canada Post to drag bags of destroyed photo albums, family keepsakes and torn drywall to the curb. His home flooded on Sunday from sewage backing up into his basement for the second time in less than a week.

Just as he finished cleaning from the first flood, his garbage pile grew larger with the second.

“We need this garbage out of here because it’s traumatizing to look at,” he said. “It’s like you’re reliving the grief over and over again.”

When Christine Lines saw the rains pummel St. Catharines on Sunday, she sprang into action making meals for those forced from their homes.

The 54-year-old community kitchen co-ordinator at Silver Spire United Church usually cooks meals for homeless people in the church basement on Mondays, but this week she decided to keep cooking into the evening so she could deliver meals to flood evacuees at a Niagara Falls community centre.

While her own home flooded, she said other people are facing homelessness because of the heavy rains.

“I don’t even know if I’m going to have a house tomorrow, but I just want to help where I can because I’m more fortunate than they are right now,” Ms. Lines said.