Flooding has reached crisis levels, prompting aid from armed forces
For the first time since the ice storm in 1998, a state of emergency has been declared on the island of Montreal.
The threat this time is flooding caused by swollen rivers that on Sunday sent water rushing into streets and basements in more neighbourhoods and had even caused water to penetrate the basement of the borough hall of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, several hundred metres inland from the des Prairies River, for the first time in its history.
“The city of Montreal is declaring a state of emergency due to flooding,” Mayor Denis Coderre announced from Montreal city hall after touring the flood zone in the West Island on Sunday. “This state of emergency is for the whole agglomeration of Montreal, and more particularly for the boroughs of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Pierrefonds-Roxboro, Île-Bizard Ste-Geneviève, the town of Ste Anne-de-Bellevue and the village of Senneville, for a period of 48 hours.”
Among other things, the state of emergency allows the island’s fire chief to order forced evacuations of homes. Coderre said a meeting of the members of the island-wide agglomeration council, which includes the mayors of island suburbs, will be held Tuesday to decide whether the 48-hour state of emergency should be prolonged for five more days.
The extension may prove unnecessary, as Quebec’s civil protection agency announced late Sunday that river levels around Montreal had risen drastically over the course of the day, but that they had reached their peak and were expected to stabilize on Monday and Tuesday.
The des Prairies River rose 13 to 15 centimetres on Sunday but had slowed by the evening, said Gilles Desgagnés, regional director for Montreal, Laval, Lanaudière and the Laurentiens for the civil protection agency. Water levels will drop very slowly before they return to normal in several days, he added. However, the forecast, calling for potential rain through much of the next several days, creates uncertainty for areas already affected by flooding, he said.
The decision to sign a state of emergency order was made after three dikes gave way in Pierrefonds Sunday morning, Coderre said. The situation was deemed to be worsening quickly in the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville as the level of the des Prairies River was expected to rise by 20 centimetres between Sunday and Monday.
Seven or eight homes in his own borough of Montreal North, farther east along the northern edge of Montreal Island, had also been flooded, he said.
“This is a historic moment,” Coderre said of the flooding.
Water levels rose substantially around the island because of higher than normal amounts of rain in April and so far in May, accompanied by seasonal snow melt. The elements have combined for historic volumes in the Ottawa River. Precipitation that falls in the Outaouais region takes about two days to arrive in Montreal.
At his news conference, Coderre was surrounded by, among others, Montreal fire department director Bruno Lachance and Montreal police chief Philippe Pichet.
Under the order, Lachance, who was promoted to director just last month and has 33 years with the fire service, also becomes coordinator of civil protection for the next 48 hours. As such, he calls the shots for all emergency response on the island.
It is Lachance who will decide if and when homes should be evacuated, an order that would be mandatory under the state of emergency.
“I want to assure citizens that we’re in control in several sectors,” Lachance said at the news conference. “There’s no threat to lives. We’re working in collaboration with the police and the military. ... An evacuation will be ordered only if there’s a danger to lives.”
Under the state of emergency order, Lachance also has the power to close streets on the island, override municipal regulations and authorities on the island to carry out an intervention he deems necessary and order any citizen to provide assistance in deploying resources to manage the crisis. He also has spending power to authorize the purchase of tools and equipment and to issue contracts he judges necessary.
“We’re working with one and the same voice,” Coderre said.
Responding to residents’ complaints in Pierrefonds that not enough sandbags have been made available to them, Coderre said the situation there and across the island is under control.
“We can understand the frustration, but today we have all the resources we need,” Coderre said at the earlier news conference. “Everyone ... is in prevention mode. There is no issue in Pierrefonds of a lack of sandbags.”
Hundreds of city employees are working on managing the crisis, Coderre said, including firefighters and police officers, blue collar workers and city councillors in the affected boroughs. He also thanked boroughs and municipalities on the island that have been offering assistance to their neighbours in flooded areas. St-Laurent borough, for example, had sent sand to Pierrefonds and Île-Bizard to fill bags during the weekend, he said.
“Everybody is working very very hard to protect (citizens),” the mayor said.
A total of 176 homes had been evacuated on Montreal Island by Sunday afternoon. Canadian Armed Forces personnel set up command posts at several points around the region, including Rigaud, Laval and Pierrefonds.
Laval Mayor Marc Demers declared a state of emergency as well on Sunday.
The city north of Montreal had evacuated 33 residents as of Sunday afternoon, notably on the islands of Île-Verte and Île-Roussin in Laval-sur-le-lac. The number of streets flooded in Laval stood at 80 as of Sunday afternoon, with 150 basements reported flooded.
Back on Montreal Island, the city’s 311 information line was down most of Sunday morning. It returned to service by afternoon and will remain operational 24 hours a day.
Also as of Sunday, 15 streets and bridges in the West Island and the bridge on Oakridge Ave. in Ahuntstic-Cartierville were closed or partially closed.
The Galipeault Bridge, connecting Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue with Île-Perrot, was closed Sunday evening in both directions by Quebec’s transport department. The department listed only “water accumulation” as the reason, without elaborating, and said the bridge would be closed for an indeterminate time. The Agence métropolitaine de transport announced Sunday afternoon that all commuter trains are continuing to operate normally.
Just before 9 a.m., about 40 members of the Canadian Armed Forces in four trucks were on hand to rescue stranded Pierrefonds residents after a dike near Chateau-Pierrefonds Ave. burst.
Prior to Sunday, water levels had risen steadily for five days in Pierrefonds-Roxboro. Borough Mayor Jim Beis on Sunday encouraged residents to call 911 if water levels forced them to leave their homes, where they would be directed to Red Cross aid centres. Those who are in psychological distress were encouraged to call 811 to talk to a nurse with Info-Santé. The SPCA has offered free boarding of animals for residents forced from their homes in that borough.
“We are putting services in place to help our population on the ground and prepare for what is to come,” Beis said in a statement Sunday morning. “Know that we are with you all through this crisis and we will get through it together.”
A platoon of the Canadian Armed Forces arrived in Pierrefonds about 2 a.m. Sunday to reinforce a breach in one of the dikes. Another arrived later Sunday morning, forming a chain along des Rivières St. and piling sandbags along residents’ backyards to keep the water out.
“At this point we are just trying to hold the line,” said Captain Frédérick Lavoie, commander of Platoon 22, Bravo Company.
At about 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, some of the 720 Montreal police officers who were pulled in during the crisis were going door to door along that street telling people to pack their bags and be ready to evacuate.
“We are ready to go if there is a breach,” Pierrefonds resident Julien Montpetit said. “We are going to start our pumps and get the hell out of here.”
Pierrefonds resident Paul McElligott said he heard the water breaching the wall of sandbags piled behind his father’s house on De Gaulle St. in the borough on Saturday night.
“I hauled ass down there and started plugging the holes with sandbags,” McElligott said. “We worked until about 1:30 a.m. Friends, neighbours, whoever was around. It was all hands on deck.”
He said no one in the area had had much sleep since Friday night and people are frustrated with the relentlessness of the situation.
More than 130 Quebec communities have been hit by flooding, with an estimated 1,500 homes affected and 850 people forced to evacuate.
At 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, Rigaud Mayor Hans Gruenwald declared a state of emergency in that town at the junction of the Ottawa and Rigaud Rivers, where water levels have been rising for weeks. He ordered the mandatory evacuation of several sectors. He estimated the evacuation order would affect about 125 homes.
He also said residents are exhausted.
The town of Hudson also declared a state of emergency at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. The Canadian military were on site there evaluating the situation and the Hudson Legion (394 Main St.) was opened to welcome evacuees.
In Oka, about 60 residences were flooded and the city hall was flooded overnight Saturday. Mayor Pascal Quevillon estimated 1,000 residences should be evacuated, displacing 3,000 people.
More than 400 Canadian Forces personnel were deployed Saturday to western and central Quebec, with the number rising to 1,200 on Sunday, 70 of them on the island of Montreal.
We’re working with one and the same voice. MONTREAL MAYOR DENIS CODERRE