Gatineau flood victims face a Christmas of frustration

Snow has replaced flood waters in Gatineau, but months after the water receded, many families will spend Christmas in Red Cross sponsored hotel rooms and apartments.

On Jacques-Cartier St., beside the Gatineau River’s east bank, Lucie Fortin lives in her grandfather’s former home.

She still sees the river as a friend; people in this neighbourhood blame Hydro-Québec dam operators upstream for the suddenness of the flooding, if not for the high water.

“In my neighbourhood there is a lot of desolation,” Fortin said. “A lot of people still cannot live in their houses. I have one friend among others who has to have her house lifted, but now it is too late in the year. She has not lived there since May, and she won’t be able to live there until at least the beginning of summer next year.”

Landlords who usually rent out their houses now have no income from them.

“There is a lot of distress, a lot of people who need help. The money isn’t arriving … On a financial level, it is a long, long, long way from being settled.”

Many residents have gone to live with family or friends rather than taking Red Cross rooms.

One couple from her neighbourhood found someone to take them in, but only in Val-des-Monts, which means husband and wife both have long commutes now to work in the city.

“But they’re adjusting,” Fortin said.

Other people are still feeling the emotional shock of seeing their homes demolished, she said.

“But people want to stay. Especially on Jacques-Cartier St., because there is a beautiful view of the river. So people do all that they can to stay on this street.”

Aren’t they bothered by a dangerous river?

“No, no, no. It is not an enemy.” For now she is keeping an eye on the political developments in Quebec, where on Tuesday there was another in a series of meetings between mayors of flooded cities and provincial officials.

Premier Philippe Couillard attended this one — and victims’ groups sent representatives as well.

Sylvie Goneau had to watch the demolition of her third-generation family home east of Kettle Island in late September. It was the same day she filed papers to run (unsuccessfully) for mayor of Gatineau, and she remembers the day as a roller-coaster.

“We were expecting to be able to raise (the house) and fix it, but because of the decree we had to completely demolish,” Goneau said.

The decree is the provincial law setting out conditions for rebuilding or replacing homes with public subsidies.

She and her husband are building a new house on the same site facing the Ottawa River — a living area and one bedroom downstairs, a spare room and a small apartment for her father upstairs. The main floor will be two feet higher than the highest point reached by May ’s floods. The walls are finished inside and the next job is the kitchen and flooring, and some blue vinyl siding and stonework outside.

“We opted not to have a basement. We didn’t want to go through that, so we have no sump pumps,” she said Tuesday.

But to get this far was a long journey, beginning with mandatory evacuation.

“They cut the power in May. We had four and a half feet of water on the main floor,” the former city councillor said.

The Red Cross moved her family into a series of three hotels. Some families were moving almost weekly. Then a Red Cross condo became available, and her family is still there, hoping for a move-in date in late January.

Some 70 families are still in Red Cross accommodation, Goneau says.

She describes her link to this low-lying and sometimes flooded site as a family anchor that reaches back three generations, a place where she fished off a dock as a child and learned, at age 10, to operate a motor boat.

“My kids are the fourth generation,” she said.

There were two cottages years ago for her grandfather and greatuncle. Her parents turned one of them into a house, and Goneau’s sister and one brother still live nearby.

“They were also flooded, but because they had built (according to) the new code at the new height, with newer construction, they were able to raise the house and fix the foundations.”

The Goneau home was older and lower and the regulations didn’t allow rebuilding.

“We always considered ourselves water people,” she said. “So for us being beside water is very important. We’ve been brought up always with the river. It’s home, you know? There are memories everywhere. There are stories from my grandparents and … things from my brother who passed away.

“The flood isn’t really scary for us. What’s scary is how the government has treated everybody.

“We still had water in our homes and the (provincial) government showed up saying, ‘We’re going to do this for you and we’re going to take care of you and you’re going to get money … Just demolish this and demolish that.’

“But it hasn’t been that easy and there have been changes in the law along the way. There have been complications.

“There are people who have fixed their homes, and the government says, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re going to send you money.’ And the money isn’t coming.

“There are still people who haven’t seen a dime.”

For us being beside water is very important. We’ve been brought up always with the river. It’s home, you know?