Flood-prep underway as Nova Scotia braces for storm

Nova Scotia is preparing for heavy weather as Environment Canada warns a looming heavy rainfall combined with frozen ground could lead to flash flooding.

Mike MacKeigan, utilities manager with the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, said crews have been busy clearing catch basins of ice and debris.

"The biggest single issue for us right now is to try and make sure the catch basins on the street are free so any of the water that's accumulating in those areas can get away fairly easily," he said.

Ready for the rain

MacKeigan saidthanks to the recent warm weather, many of the drains were already clear. But some infrastructure damaged during last October's flood has not yet been repaired.

"We've got a lot of work to do replacing and repairing some of the damaged infrastructure that occurred back in October," he said. "So that's going to take us a little while and certainly we are evaluating some of the areas that were hard hit to try and determine just what would be the next step."

He's confident the infrastructure can handle the predicted rain.

'We've made sure that anything that needs to have further work done is certainly ready and able to withstand something of this nature," he said.

Preparing for power outages

Nova Scotia Power sent crews home early this afternoon so they'll be rested tonight when the storm hits.

"We've opened the emergency operation centre to plan and coordinate our response to this storm," said Bev Ware, spokeswoman for the power company.

"The wind is expected to be the key concern. The forecast is calling for extreme winds across the province, so that is expected to cause some outages."

When winds gust past 80 kilometres per hour, the bucket truck is sidelined, which could slow repairs.

• Messy mix of wind and rain to hit Nova Scotia Thursday night and Friday