Flood victims speak out at Pierrefonds-Roxboro meeting
Mayor promises to study and address infrastructure issues, disaster response
Pierrefonds-Roxboro flood victims filled the council room at the borough hall on Monday. They wanted their stories heard and they asked for help.
Borough Mayor Jim Beis and councillors listened to close to two hours of testimonies, primarily from residents of 5th Ave. N. in Roxboro and Des Maçons St. in Pierrefonds. Both areas were devastated by the flooding that hit with unprecedented force in early May.
The material damage left behind receding waters is enormous — the structural integrity of homes compromised, personal mementos destroyed. One victim who spoke at length said she lost at least $3,000 of hockey equipment she purchased for her children.
Then there was the unrelenting stress of living outside the home. The hockey mom spoke of having four children in four different schools. She scrambles every day to shuttle her family in four different directions while trying to piece together the complicated process required to get experts in to verify the damage, check the air quality and give the green light for the family to move back home and start the rebuilding process — in both concrete and emotional terms.
Another victim lost her home and her home daycare. She is now without income.
“I had four minutes to leave my home,” a resident of Des Maçons St. said. “Six feet of water in four minutes. We asked for sandbags (the day before). They didn’t come. Now it’s one month later and we don’t know how to get help and from whom.”
Voices cracked with emotion as victim after victim took to the microphone. One man said the mental havoc wreaked by having to live with intense stress for protracted periods had taken a toll on his health.
“We were abandoned,” a 5th Ave. N. victim told council.
Stories were told of sand being dumped, but with bags nowhere to be found. One woman filled her pillow cases with sand in a desperate attempt to build a dike.
Residents also asked council for help. The waters have receded, now the battle is with the bureaucracy. They talked about trying to track down information letters promised, but not received; official visits promised, but not fulfilled; sifting through contradictory advice from officials.
“It was a long night, but that was to be expected,” Beis said Tuesday.
“They had constructive criticisms and voiced their obvious frustration with the different levels of government. I understand. This is a major crisis and it’s not over yet. It will be months before things settle and they will carry this with them for years to come.”
A frequent request during the question period was for the mayor to meet with residents of individual streets to address their particular concerns. Beis promised this would happen.
“The borough was out there 24/7, but we didn’t live what they lived,” he said. “It is important for us to listen to their minute-by-minute accounts. And we must take note of where response was lacking.”
Residents of 5th Ave. N were united in their call that permanent changes be made to the infrastructure to prevent flooding.
“This was the flood of the century,” Beis said. “But it seems that this type of disaster might be happening more often than not in the future. We have to look at the longterm and take our time to study major infrastructure issues and find permanent solutions.
“We have to look at our system of sewer pipes. Is building a permanent dike (in the 5th Ave. N. sector) the way to go? And we have to look at our disaster-response plan.”