Updated emergency plan proved effective: mayor
The City of Vaudreuil-Dorion’s updated emergency measures plan, renewed less than two months ago, helped put the municipality well ahead in the battle to keep residents and properties safe from the rising waters of the Ottawa River and Lake of Two Mountains this month.
“We’ve been working on our emergency measures plan for more than a year and a half to two years,” Mayor Guy Pilon told residents at the city council meeting on Monday. “Teams were already prepared, our directors knew what to do. Even the army came to see us to ask what to do.”
“We were lucky in a way, because we were ready for a big practice drill (to put measures to the test) in June,” he said.
The city’s updated emergency system charted the progressive rise of flood waters on a series of maps, which alerted officials about homes and properties in imminent danger of flooding.
“We could automatically tell which houses could be affected,” the mayor said.
City authorities then followed through by alerting residents of those homes, and making sure they were prepared for the rising waters.
“So we were already ahead of the flood, preparing for it,” the mayor said.
Water levels in the lake finally started to drop on the weekend, registering 23.92 metres above sea level on Monday afternoon, down from a high of 24.66 metres measured one week before, city officials reported.
In total, 192 homes were threatened by rising waters, and of those, about 50 were actually flooded in some way, said the city’s director of financial services, Marco Pilon.
At the height of flooding in the first week of May, the city evacuated 31 residents from nine homes. On Tuesday, 12 residents remained evacuated.
The city started collecting waste and refuse from roadsides in affected areas this week, the director said.
A large-scale cleanup will take place on Saturday, and will include the removal of sandbags as well as debris by city officials and volunteers.
City council passed a series of resolutions at Monday’s meeting to cover emergency measures expenses, including technical support, rentals of power generators, water pumps and heavy equipment as well as sandbags and other materials used to install temporary dams and dikes.
The first $115,000 of Vaudreuil-Dorion’s emergency expenses is to be covered by the city, specified as $3 per resident. Quebec’s department of Public Security will cover additional expenses, Marco Pilon said.
The department will also provide financial aid to homeowners affected by flooding damage through the city’s website and in public information meetings.
Structural engineers from the city are offering to inspect homes for damage due to flooding, starting this week.
The city’s renewed emergency measures plan pulled Vaudreuil-Dorion through the disaster well enough to allow it to come to the aid of neighbouring towns and villages, as well as help give direction to Canadian Forces personnel who came to aid the Off-Island region, the mayor said.
“We were right in the middle of it, that’s why everyone was prepared,” he added. “So now we will all get together to see what we could do better.”