Teamwork buoys residents of Île-Mercier
Ad hoc community has mayor, services and dress code: hip waders
Cut off by all roads, and with waisthigh water surrounding their homes, the 26 remaining residents of Île-Mercier have formed a new independent community.
They have a mayor, a division of labour and regular deliveries of food and supplies. They even have a common dress code: hip waders.
“We’re surviving, and we’re happy,” said Pier-Luc Cauchon, 32, who has lived on the island his whole life — now in the house next to his parents.
There are 11 households remaining on an island of 55 homes.
“They started calling me the mayor around here, and I said that’s OK,” Cauchon said.
With the threat of a forced evacuation looming last weekend, the residents got organized.
Cauchon printed out a map of the island, highlighted for police officers and firefighters which homes were still inhabited and wrote down their names and phone numbers.
The island residents are all linked through a private Facebook group.
“People can ask for anything on the Facebook group,” Cauchon said. “Someone asked for cat food, we got it for them. They asked for milk. Someone even asked for boots. We bring sandwiches out to people every four hours.”
Residents also took it upon themselves to maintain the pumps running on the island. Two massive pumps direct water out the area’s storm sewer system so the rushing river doesn’t overwhelm the network.
“We have to check the oil and change the gas every two hours,” Cauchon explained. “If the pumps stop, people’s toilets will start overflowing in their homes.”
One of the pumps was provided by the city, while another was purchased by the residents, who take shifts around the clock, to ensure the pumps are maintained every two hours.
Cauchon, a general contractor, sent his four young children away last week.
Other parents also sent their children to live with relatives, while maintaining their homes on the island.
On Thursday, Jean-François Avoine picked up a photographer and a reporter in his chaloupe — a rowboat with a motor attached. Rowboats, canoes, kayaks and motorboats are scattered on the island. Firefighters also make daily visits to the island using their own boat.
Avoine, a Pincourt resident who was born on the island, returned last week to help his parents manage the crisis, but he has been helping all the island’s residents. A blue-collar worker for the city of Pointe-Claire, Avoine bragged that he has carried all sorts of odd items to the island on his boat including two portable bathrooms.
“I carried a total of 12 pallets of sandbags over by boat,” Avoine said. “It takes three and a half trips for each pallet, so that’s more than 40 trips.”
Residents appeared to be in good spirits, and some said they have been sleeping more in recent days.
“But there’s still lots of tension,” said Jean Ouellet, who lives in a one-floor cottage near the flooded bridge. “We’re all still working on adrenalin.”
Still, he said he takes pride in enjoying a warm coffee in his dining room, while watching the slowly receding river on the street in front of his house.
Ouellet explained it was a tremendous fight to keep his house from being flooded, one he almost lost.
Friends helped him collect a total of 600 sandbags, some he lifted out of frigid water from his neighbours’ homes (for which he got permission), to build a dike around the perimeter of his house.
At one point, he left the island, thinking all was lost.
“We worked until three or four in the morning on Sunday, and then we woke up a few hours later and there was water coming up from the toilet. I said to my friends, ‘we did all we could,’ and we left. I slept for 16 hours after that.”
When he returned on Monday, he expected to see most of his house under water.
“But instead, I saw that the water was still pumping and the lights were still on,” he said. “I could not believe it.”
The water stabilized just inches away from coming over the wall of sandbags. Ouellet called it a miracle.
Others were not so lucky. One family fled the island after they heard a loud bang, and saw their home’s foundation cracked in several places. On Thursday, it was possible to see the inside of the house’s basement from outside.
The island’s oldest resident, Germaine Dostie, 87, said she’s proud of the community spirit that evolved out of the crisis.
“These people are really brave,” she said between puffs of a cigarette while sitting in her kitchen, the waves of a lake lapping the back wall of her house. “It’s hard to leave. When you work your whole life to keep your house, it’s very discouraging to have to leave.”
Dostie, who bought her house in the 1950s, gets regular visits from her son Dave, 55, who lives in nearby Île-Bizard. He takes his boat to bring food and supplies. While Germaine Dostie doesn’t don hip waders to take a turn maintaining the pumps, she does help out by making sure the mayor is fed.
“She cooks me dinner every night,” Cauchon said with a grin.