The road to the iconic Nova Scotia tourist destination Peggy’s Cove has reopened after devastating floods last month. It’s welcome news for both visitors and a community hit hard by environmental disasters.

A temporary, one-lane bridge is now up near Blind Bay, NS, which allows traffic to pass on its way between Halifax and the famous lighthouse in Peggy’s Cove. The historic July floods had washed away the road in the area, leaving it impassable.

Pam Lovelace, the municipal councillor for the area, said the road closure has been hard on the area’s tourism business, and that the bridge is an important development for residents’ commutes, and for their peace of mind.

The flooding was triggered by torrential thunderstorms that began July 21, and dumped months worth of rain on parts of central Nova Scotia.

The rain began just less than two months after raging forest fires broke out in the Halifax and Shelburne County areas. The flames engulfed houses and forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes in search of safety.

Next month will be the one-year anniversary of post-tropical storm Fiona making landfall in Nova Scotia. The storm destroyed several homes in the province, and it is believed to have swept an 81-year-old man out to sea.

The road, Route 333, runs south from the Halifax area and westward around the shore to Peggy’s Cove, and then back north to the Upper Tantallon region, which was an epicentre for one of the major fires.

People who lived on the Peggy’s Cove side of the washout but worked on the other side had to drive all the way round through Halifax to get to their job each day, said Adam Zita, operations manager for East Coast Outfitters, a sea kayaking operation in the area. It added about an hour to their commute each way, he said.

It also made the drive to the lighthouse from Halifax about 20 minutes longer.

People in the surrounding communities are still talking about the flooding, he added.

“I’ve lived here for the past 15 or 14 years, and everybody I’ve asked that’s lived here, they haven’t seen anything like that, ever,” he said. “And I’ve never experienced anything like this since I’ve been here.”