‘Why was the road open?’: Family of N.S. flood victim demands answers, questions alert readiness

globalnews.ca:

It doesn’t make sense to Robie Holland that — as 250 millimetres of rain poured down in rural Nova Scotia — there was nothing to stop his father from travelling down a rapidly flooding road.

“Why was the road open? That’s the main question I keep coming back to …. It was flooding, and it wasn’t safe for people to be going down those roads. Why, if you’re out in the rural communities, is it a free-for-all?” he asked in an interview Friday.

“In my eyes, this was an avoidable situation.”

Nicholas Holland, 52, was among the four people who died in the historic, inland flooding on July 22, as torrential waters poured over rural Route 14 near Brooklyn, N.S. — northwest of Halifax — and swept two vehicles into a hayfield.

Robie Holland, 25, and his sister Sophie Holland, 23, said in an interview that while they’re grateful for the efforts of searchers that night, an independent probe is needed to answer questions about the response to the flooding disaster.

Questions include why there was a delay after a request at 1:22 a.m. from the deputy chief of the Brooklyn volunteer fire department for a Ready Alert telling drivers to stay off the road. The alert was sent by provincial emergency management officials at 3:06 a.m., about half an hour after police say the taxi carrying Holland and three others went in the water.

“If they’re on the highway stranded and they’d had an alert saying, ‘Don’t go down to this area,’ they wouldn’t have gone there. They’re going to change their plans,” Robie Holland said.

Holland’s two children said they have learned from survivors’ accounts that after their father, a rock musician, finished playing a show in Windsor, N.S., in the early hours of July 22, he and his girlfriend set off for their