Crews are sandbagging waterfront areas in Bowmanville, Ont. while city officials in Toronto monitor water levels along the lakeshore and riverbanks in the face of a deluge of rain on Friday. 

Emergency crews have been sent to Cedar Crest Beach Road, an isolated residential area on the Lake Ontario coast in Bowmanville, with the expectation that the area will be vulnerable to flooding on Friday.

Durham Regional Police officers are going door-to-door to “assess residents’ needs,” officials say.

Anyone who wishes to leave the Cedar Crest Beach Road area can go to an evacuation centre opened at the Newcastle & District Recreation Complex at 1780 Rudell Road, but emergency management officials stress that a mandatory evacuation of the area has not been ordered at this time.

“We are not at that point yet. We are going to continue to sandbag. As long as the sump pumps are keeping the basements clear and as long as the sandbags are keeping the lake away we are okay. But you want to be in front of it so we opened the evacuation centre and we have had the police out a couple times knocking on doors,” Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster told CP24 on Friday afternoon.

“All we can do is keep putting those sandbags down.”

Potential GO Transit and TTC impacts

As the rain continues to fall in Toronto, there are concerns about potential flooding disrupting some public transit service.

Metrolinx Spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said that water levels have risen near the Richmond Hill GO Transit corridor and could eventually prompt the rerouting of the train along an alternative corridor that skips several stations.

“We have a high water alarm but the water is just below it,” she said. “If the alarm goes off it means the Richmond Hill corridor is flooding and we need to adjust service.”

[IN PHOTOS: Toronto braces for possible flooding]

TTC service was running according to schedule on Friday morning but spokesperson Stuart Green told CP24 that commuters should still leave extra time to get to their destinations.

Green said the TTC has extra staff on hand today in the event of flooding in the subway system but is hopeful that service will continue to run smoothly.

“We are set to go should anything happen but we are okay as of right now,” he said.

DVP closure averted

The city had said that flooding could prompt the closure of the Don Valley Parkway at 3 p.m. as a safety precaution. But crews measuring water levels in the southern portion of the highway said there was no need to close it as widespread flooding was no longer likely.

"The rain is not an intense as they predicted," Coun. Jay Robinson told CP24 on Friday afternoon. 

In 2013, the DVP was closed from the Gardiner Expressway to Bloor Street after the Don River overflowed its bank, sending waters onto the highway.

City crews will continue to monitor the accumulation in low-lying areas around the DVP. They have not ruled closing the highway if conditions change. 

"We're still monitoring the situation and if we need to down the road, we will still look at that option," Robinson said. 

Authorities are asking motorists to "take it easy in their home commute."

Mayor John Tory said people across the city should be mindful of the rain and should consider staying off the roads.

“I would just say to people, please use public transportation today, don’t drive and just use common sense around waterways,” he said. “We will get through this. It is just rain. There is a lot of it. But we will get through it.”