Angry residents say they feel abandoned by ‘incompetent’ city
Residents feel abandoned by city: ‘Word that comes to mind is incompetence’
Troops completed a 1.2-kilometre dike on Lalande Blvd. and started pushing water back to the river with several massive pumps Wednesday.
But as the waters began to recede, tempers still ran high among those affected by flooding throughout the region.
“You see all these bags? Look at the yellow ones. Those are the ones that were given to us by the city,” said Tom Schwalb pointing to a wall of about 100 sandbags in front of his driveway, with six yellow ones.
Schwalb had about a foot of water in his basement at the worst point, and pumped out most of it by early Wednesday. He said most of his sandbag supply came from the nearby garden centre, Pépinère des Sources Nursery garden centre, which provided hundreds of bags to residents for free.
“We pay taxes to the city, not the garden centre,” he said.
Residents of the street said they felt abandoned by the city, after Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre promised any resident who needed sandbags could call the city’s tollfree 311 phone line and get them within 30 minutes.
“Not only did we not get bags that quickly, but I stayed on hold for 30 minutes before I could speak to anyone,” said Faigy Grzeda, Schwalb’s partner.
Schwalb said city officials told him residents of Pierrefonds West were the priority, but farther west on des Maçons St., another resident said he also had trouble getting help from the city.
“The word that comes to mind is incompetence, and it’s not the people. It’s the administration,” said Itsik Romano, who abandoned his des Maçons St. home on Sunday morning, which was also his 44th birthday.
Romano, who has lived on the street for a decade said he got little help from the city, or from police or the fire department when it came time to abandon his house with his wife and four children.
“I called 911 so I could get some help for my wife to walk out of the house in the water with our baby, because I was worried she would lose her footing, but they told me no one was available,” Romano said.
Romano said he’s angry the city seems to be disorganized, and unprepared to deal with this crisis. He said the signs of a possible flood were evident for several weeks, and there was ample time for the city to prepare, or even to build up dikes ahead of time.
“It’s like Highway 13 all over again,” he said referring to the closing of the highway during a major snowstorm in March. “Someone did not do their job, and it’s because of the structure of the bureaucracy that everything fell through.”
Île-Mercier resident Sonia Brown said Coderre put on a good show to make it seem like the city was prepared, but that was not the case. She said when she called to get sandbags from the city, very few ever came.
“The day Denis Coderre came with the mayor (of Île Bizard—SteGeneviève, Normand Marinacci), he was offering us pizza, but we had to walk across the bridge to get the pizza; I didn’t need pizza,” said Brown, who fled her house on Sunday. “I needed prevention. I needed to army to come here to prevent this.”