Quebec pledges funding to help rebuild Outaouais

MNA sees ‘enormous amount of damage’ caused by flooding throughout the region

Chelsea had just finished $4 million of paving on Mountain Road when the rain came and water sliced through the new construction like a knife.

That and many other washouts in the Outaouais this week are teaching municipalities tough lessons about how to redesign roads for the climate change era, with heavier rains expected.

“We had the streams coming out of the park that washed out the road. On the new road, it has been eaten away at the sides,” Chelsea Mayor Caryl Green said Friday.

It’s open now, she said, but it’s like patchwork.

Elsewhere in the town, Fleury Road crosses Chelsea Creek — which is now a torrent. It washed out in 2011, so the town put in a much bigger culvert for the creek.

It wasn’t enough to prevent another washout this week.

“We are just going to have to recognize that climate change is here, and we have to, every time we change a culvert, oversize it or put in a second one,” Green said.

“Our ditches are something we will have to maintain at a faster rate.”

Right away, she wants bigger culverts for the repaired section of Mountain Road. “Don’t wait for it to happen again,” Green said.

At a news conference Friday, a promise of provincial aid for municipalities and individual flood victims came from Stéphanie Vallée, the MNA for the Gatineau riding.

She is also the minister for public safety and the minister responsible for the Outaouais.

The emergency funding is approved in general, she said, but details will have to wait until the repair costs are added up.

Vallée said she was shocked by Facebook and Twitter photos of the damage, and was spending Friday afternoon touring the Outaouais to see it firsthand.

She said there has been “an enormous amount of damage.”

“The situation is slowly getting back to normal, although we are expecting some more rain on Sunday,” she said.

Three municipalities — La Pêche, Denholm and Val-desMonts — declared states of emergency this week. Chelsea came close, and more than half a dozen others had severe damage.

In Val-des-Monts, Vallée said, 60 people had to be evacuated and another 200 are unable to reach their properties because of road closures.

As well, much of Chelsea sits on unstable clay, which soaks up water until it suddenly collapses and slides downhill.

A landslide closed River Road in Chelsea. Another hit close to Tulip Valley and one in Hollow Glen is five metres from a home.

Green said she was glad to hear about the province’s offer of aid, adding: “We’ll have to see what the dollar figure is.”

“It’s something that municipalities can’t pay for alone, so I believe it need(s) to be all levels of government — municipal, provincial and federal.”

Chelsea owns many roads that serve Gatineau Park, and Green wants the National Capital Commission to ante up.

At present, regulations forbid it from paying for municipal roads.

To the north in Denholm, Mayor Gaétan Guindon has proposed permanently closing Paugan Road, which links communities on the east and west sides of the Gatineau River. It washed out in 2016 and again this week, sending everything from police cars to school buses on a long trek down to the crossing at Wakefield, more than 20 kilometres south.

Denholm has fewer than 600 permanent residents, and with the latest road repair bill expected to be at least $1.5 million, the mayor says the little community just can’t keep paying. He’s hoping the province would either take over the road or provide regular funds for maintenance.

“I recognize the importance of Paugan Road,” Vallée said Friday.

She said it serves two schools and is also an key route for emergency vehicles.

Climate change is here, and we have to, every time we change a culvert, oversize it or put in a second one.