Montreal flood waters reach 2017 highs, Pierrefonds-Roxboro mayor says
Flood waters have attained the levels reached during historic highs in 2017, and they are expected to keep rising, warned Pierrefonds-Roxboro mayor Jim Beis.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday morning, Beis said city crews are working around the clock to prepare for the possibility of flooding, and to prevent waters from submerging local roads. However, the water levels of the Rivière des Prairies continue to rise, as more homes find themselves on the brink of flooding.
“If these installations were not in place, on Saturday, we would have been severely flooded in this area and hundreds of homes would be under water,” Beis said standing at the end of Château-Pierrefonds Ave. in the west end of the borough.
Beis was showing Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada the preventive measures in place to hold back rising water levels.
Pierrefonds and Roxboro were among the communities hardest hit by record flooding in 2017, when hundreds had to flee their homes.
Roughly 1.5 kilometres of temporary dikes were set up last week along the shoreline, as well as inflatable walls. The borough also has high-capacity pumps on the ready in order to pump water out of storm sewers located near the river.
“It’s tremendous work using a technique that Jim brought back from his visit to New Orleans,” Martinez Ferrada said. “He’s going to be working with his colleagues in Ahuntsic-Cartierville among other boroughs to see how they can implement this in other places of Montreal.”
Preliminary meaurements — taken by the province’s environment ministry — of the water level in the Ottawa River, which feeds the Rivière des Prairies, confirm that the levels on Wednesday had reached the historic highs recorded since 1970.
Over the weekend, Anse-à-l’Orme St., which links Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue to Pierrefonds, was closed. On Wednesday, the water on that road was roughly two feet deep, while nearby Gouin Blvd. was also nearly fully submerged. Beis said it’s likely that part of Gouin will be closed in the coming hours or days.
While forecasts called for water levels to decrease, they actually rose slightly overnight Tuesday.
“We have to understand that we are in the first wave of potential flooding,” Beis said. “In the beginning of May is when water levels are supposed to rise even higher if we follow the trends of years past,” Beis said.
Residents on Château-Pierrefonds said they are confident in the temporary measures in place to hold back floodwaters, but they are still concerned for their homes because the water levels are continuing to rise.
Martinez Ferrada said she feels for citizens whose homes are at risk.
“I can only imagine as a citizen that you have to stay home for a month during the month of April because you don’t know what’s going to happen to your home,” Martinez Ferrada said.
Beis, who manages public security on Martinez Ferrada’s executive committee, said police officers and firefighters are at the ready with nautical teams if they need to rescue people cut off by floodwaters.
Beis said that so far, the measures in place in Pierrefonds are not duplicated elsewhere in Montreal, so he wants to work with other boroughs to better co-ordinate the flood efforts.
In Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, water had covered the historic pier at the southwest end of the town, and crews were at work pumping out the storm sewer system. Water had crept up to less than one foot from ground level at the locks, and town blue-collar workers had put in place a wall of sandbags at that point.
While there remains a risk for homes and buildings in the town, Mayor Michel Boudreault said the city is prepared and there is no reason to panic.
“The conditions we’re seeing, and the forecast allow us to be moderately optimistic,” Boudreault said in a phone interview. “But everything is under control and we’re staying vigilant 24 hours per day. We think the worst is behind us.”
Still, several homes had built walls of sandbags around them, including a Bell Canada building located on Ste-Anne St.
He said he doesn’t share Beis’s opinion that waters will continue to rise until the beginning of May.
“It all depends on the weather and the thaw, but I’m optimistic,” he said.
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