To the editor:

Thank you to all our neighbours, friends and strangers who voluntarily shovelled, sandbagged, wheel-barrowed, and placed the sandbags around our homes and properties on Burne Ave. this past Friday and Saturday when Mill Creek flooded its banks. A very special thanks to those who came from other areas of the city to help shovel and sandbag. Your help was so much appreciated.

Thank you to the city staff who dumped many loads of sand on our street so we could shovel and sandbag even though there were other areas of the city even worse off than we were.

Thank you to our neighbours, friends and even strangers who brought food and water to keep our spirits up so we could keep shovelling and sandbagging.

Thank you to those with trucks and wheelbarrows who hauled sandbags from the Ethel end of the street to the Richter end to protect homes and properties as the creek quickly diverted and made it way down our backyards and alley we share with Cadder.

And a special thank you to the crew of HydraClean who put all hands on deck and started bagging sand, loading their trucks and placing the sandbags to stop even more water from damaging our properties while pumping basements and crawl spaces.

We are grateful for the support of everyone who did everything they could to help us save our homes and properties. We feel for the residents in other areas like Marshall St. and Sutherland that are still ankle and knee deep in water.

We hope the worst will soon be over for everyone and we can get started with the ‘great cleanup’. While we each have our own messes to deal with I hope soon, we’ll be able to look back on this event and share and compare stories about the ‘great flood of 2017’, for years to come.

Marilyn Strong, ÁðÁ§ÉñÉç