More Canadian Flooding!

There's been more urban flooding in Canadian cities! Yesterday, a thunderstorm dropped a month's worth of rain in a couple of hours on the Toronto area. Storm drains filled to overflowing, and if there was an underpass, it was likely flooded.
Even the subway trains and stations were affected.
Check out The Guardian for a few excellent photos of police and emergency personnel in small boats, rescuing stranded passengers from the Go Train. That's the train I rode a few times with my kayak and gear in a bag... would have been useful! Was that the Toronto Police Marine Unit, carrying commuters to safety? And farther on in the slideshow of images, is someone in a red canoe paddling past a bicycle being ridden half-way to its hubs in flood water. Alternate transportation works.

Rick Mercer Gets Wet

Rick Mercer (host of the appropriately named Rick Mercer Report) recently filmed a segment in Toronto where he learned how to kayak. To quote the Adventure Kayak website:

"Canadian TV star Rick Mercer filmed an upcoming episode at the Toronto Outdoor Adventure show, hopping into the paddling demo tank for a wet-exit lesson from instructor James Roberts of Learntokayak.ca. “It’s like adventure water boarding,” said Mercer after coming up for air and blowing his nose."

The brief kayak section was part of a larger report from the Toronto Outdoor Adventure show where he also did some stand-up paddling, scuba dived (scuba dove?) for the first time, and attempted to elude the Mantracker (yeah, like that could ever happen).

That clip is embedded here:


Another segment from the same episode which might be of interest to our readers was a segment on river ice rescues featuring the Toronto Police Marine Unit. That video is embedded here: