NOW FLOODS, TOO?
Lake St-louis comes close to cresting over the pier at 34th Ave. in Lachine on Tuesday. West Island communities are closely monitoring water levels, but evacuations would be hampered by COVID-19 isolation measures,
The borough of Pierrefonds-roxboro says that even with the coronavirus pandemic, it’s preparing for spring flood season.
The borough posted an advisory on its website this week saying that it began its annual monitoring of the Rivière des Prairies at the beginning of March.
“To date, the water levels and flows of the Rivière des Prairies are below minor flood thresholds,” the notice says.
The situation is being closely monitored by the borough’s departments, which are meeting regularly, Pierrefonds-roxboro Mayor Jim Beis said Tuesday.
“We monitor this every day, and we’ve been doing this for several weeks now,” he said. “So at the moment, it’s not alarming, and it’s not even at the level where we start our interventions or preventive measures.”
As part of its preparedness plan, he said, the borough council passed a resolution last week to purchase $70,000 worth of additional mitigation equipment, including modular walls and burlap bags. The borough is also about to acquire more pumps to make sure it can mobilize rapidly if necessary, Beis said.
The situation is also being monitored in Ste-anne-de-bellevue, where Lake St-louis was 2.5 inches above the minor flood level on Tuesday, Mayor Paola Hawa said.
The West Island suburb was the only place on Montreal Island, and one of the only places in Quebec, where the water level was above the minor flood level as of Tuesday.
“It’s normal,” Hawa said of the time of year, “and it’s being monitored.”
Lake St-louis has risen in previous years without causing flooding in the municipality, she said.
Ste-anne-de-bellevue already has 90 per cent of its emergency plan in place, she added, as the municipality also watches the level of Lake of Two Mountains “like a hawk.”
Meanwhile, Quebec Public Safety Minister Geneviève Guilbault announced Tuesday that the province will not be able to open emergency shelters in the event of spring flooding this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The minister called on municipalities to arrange for hotels and university dormitories to house residents who may be displaced by flooding.
Beis said he agrees with the decision, and noted that Pierrefonds-roxboro didn’t open shelters during the 2017 and 2019 floods.
Instead, the Red Cross triaged displaced residents at an emergency co-ordination centre and brought those who didn’t have family to stay with to hotels, he said.
“I think it’s a good decision on their part, but it doesn’t affect us,” he said of the government’s announcement that emergency shelters won’t be an option this spring.
“When you look at the safety of the citizens, and making sure that they’re limited in the numbers congregating in one place, I think to isolate them in individual rooms in hotels ... is the best way to go about it.”
Beis said the mayors of riverfront communities on the island and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante have a meeting scheduled with Guilbault later this week to discuss the logistics and financing for such flood-preparedness measures.
However, Hawa said she and other suburban mayors are unaware of a meeting scheduled with the public safety minister.
“We have not been invited, even though we have suffered floods over the past two flood seasons,” Hawa said.
Beis, who criticized the provincial government and the City of Montreal in January for not taking concrete measures to prevent flooding in the West Island, said he’s hopeful the meeting can happen despite the coronavirus crisis.