PM visits ‘eye of the dragon’ in Gatineau
When the whirring helicopters and throngs of politicians and media trickled out of the hardest-hit part of Pointe- Gatineau Thursday morning, the inundated streets of the Gatineau neighbourhood seemed empty and quiet.
Rue Saint-François-Xavier is entirely under water, with driveways of drowned cars and mallard ducks swimming through backyards.
Residents donned hip waders or boarded rowboats and canoes to travel from one end to the other of les rues Saint-Louis, JacquesCartier and Moreau.
Many have fled the worst-affected streets, but those who remained were emotional as they described the devastating impact the floodwaters have left in their wake and their fears of what will happen next.
Thérèse Richard was in tears as she told the prime minister about her family’s situation.
She and her husband live just up the street from the landing spot for the helicopters that ferried Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard around the flood zone.
In a quirk of geography, their waterfront house is dry but a block inland, the home of her 95-yearold mother-in-law, who’s now in a nursing home, is flooded.
“It is the house my husband grew up in,” she said. “The (mother-inlaw’s) four boys work to keep it up.”
They worked tirelessly to save it yet the family won’t get any compensation for the losses because it’s rented out to tenants, she told Trudeau and Couillard.
“They’re very sympathetic, (the premier) did say he would try to revise the problem,” Richard said.
“But as we all know in a lot of government rulings, it takes time. We don’t have time. A lot of people, they need compensation now in order to have the money so you can start the work.”
Still, she was grateful for their visit and even a hug from Trudeau.
“It’s by being here that you see,” Richard said. “You can look at it on TV and say ‘Oh, my God’ but when you’re actually in it, when you see the impact, I think it sinks in more for them, maybe it will help them revise it a little bit faster, I hope.”
Richard has lived in the area for more than four decades and recalls bringing her mother-in-law a birthday cake by boat the year of the last terrible flooding.
“It’s worse than 1974,” she said, and yet “to live along water — I don’t think I could live anywhere else.”
After his helicopter tour of the region, Trudeau also said that as climate change continues to be a serious threat, Canadians need to be prepared to deal more often with severe weather disasters such as the capital region flooding.
He and the Quebec premier urged Canadians to dig deep and contribute to relief efforts for flood victims in Ontario and Quebec.
Couillard acknowledged frustration in his province with the financial help that’s been made available, saying Quebec is taking another look at the terms and the limits of its assistance program.
He says $800,000 has already been distributed, with more to come from the province and the Red Cross.
A tearful Carole Gaulin, 57, also got a hug from the prime minister.
“I’m going to be emotional here,” she said as she pointed out the house where she rents an apartment, six houses past the water line that’s turned Rue Saint-Louis into a lake.
On May 1, with water pouring into the driveway, she fled her second-floor apartment before she’d be unable to escape in her car. This Sunday, her landlord, whose family business is renting out four properties, called to say he’d lost the battle to save the home. Gaulin apologized for her tears. “I’m not the one that’s the worst, I’m the lucky one,” she said. “My landlord was incredible, he made a barricade. The work he went through to save his house, it was incredible to see that, the courage.
“This is the eye of the dragon,” she said of her neighbourhood, adding “at least everyone is safe.”
Gatineau Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin told reporters the sun was shining and the water receding but the risk remains and a massive cleanup effort is still ahead.
“Just because the street is dry doesn’t mean it’s safe,” he said.
Nelson St-Amour, 64, is a third generation resident of Moreau Street. He raised his furniture on cinder blocks but the water stopped half an inch away from flooding into his house.
His neighbours weren’t so lucky, he said, pointing to their flooded homes sitting dark and empty from his front porch with a red canoe pulled up on the sidewalk.
“That one there, he worked like crazy,” St-Amour said, pointing to a home ringed with sandbags halfa-dozen high.