Victims of Highway 13 fiasco still waiting
A year since hundreds of people were stranded in their cars overnight on Highway 13 because of a blizzard, lawyers hoping for a quick out-of-court class-action settlement say negotiations have stalled, until the next round.
The provincial government is willing, but the City of Montreal said no, lawyer Marc-Antoine Cloutier said Wednesday.
In November, a Quebec Superior Court judge gave the green light to a class-action lawsuit against the city and province. Quebec’s Transport Ministry, the Sûreté du Québec and the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) are also named as defendants.
Two thousand claimants are seeking $2,500 apiece in damages for a total of $5 million. Many were trapped in the cold without food or water for up to 14 hours, and some needed access to regular medication. Those who ran out of gas also ran out of heat. They needed washroom facilities. Some families with children attempted to walk along the highway in search of help.
The government apologized, Cloutier said, but victims so far have received no financial compensation.
“One year later, it’s time to put words to action and compensate victims who suffered harm,” Cloutier said of people deprived of their freedom, dignity and safety.
Jacques Laramée, 65, said he is still traumatized by the events of the night of March 14. There was no indication that anything was wrong when he left his daughter’s home in St-Jérôme at 4 p.m. for St-Constant to have supper with his wife.
Traffic slowed and finally ground to a halt along the storm-swept road, about four kilometres from the exit to Highway 20.
A diabetic who needs to take his medication, Laramée said he was concerned about his health, but there was no news about what caused the bottleneck on Highway 13 — nor how long he and hundreds of others would be stuck there.
He had no food and no water. He needed his medication. And he had to turn off the car to conserve gas.
The worst part was feeling powerless, he said. His stress mounted with each minute that passed, he said, choking with emotion.
A retired banker, Laramée said he has faced 14 holdups during his career, but getting trapped on the highway was worse.
“A holdup lasts 30 seconds, but this lasted 10 hours,” he said. “That’s 10 hours of not knowing what to do.”
He now packs his car with a survival kit, including food and water, blankets and other essential items.
Troubles on Highway 13 began as traffic grew in the snowstorm and cars began to break down, some running out of gas. Then two trucks reportedly got stuck and blocked the highway completely. Hundreds of 911 calls were reported. Hours passed and the provincial transport department didn’t send in plows. Some tow trucks couldn’t get through, and most were already busy elsewhere on the roads. Finally, the fire department was called in.
A report by government investigator Florent Gagné largely blamed Quebec Transport and the Sûreté du Québec for a series of gaps in communication about what was going on, followed by poor management of the situation that night; it also said that a Roxboro company had failed to clear snow and spread abrasives.