Record rain causes widespread flooding
By Sunday afternoon, power had been restored to all but about 10,000 Hydro- Québec customers after high winds and heavy accumulations of water brought about by the record rainfall of post-tropical storm Debby had caused power outages in several regions of the province. At the peak of the outages on Friday evening nearly 550,000 customers were without power.
By 4:30 p.m. Sunday, about 4,150 of 9,998 Hydro customers still without power were in the Eastern Townships, the region most affected by the outages; 807 were on the island of Montreal.
The “vast majority” of customers would have power restored by Sunday evening, the utility said, with “more complex situations,” such as those related to issues of accessibility, to be restored by Monday.
Nearly 300 teams were at work Sunday restore power, with crews travelling between regions to speed up restoration; Hydro was also calling on outside contractors to lend a hand.
The Greater Montreal area received a record amount of rain, with an accumulation of 150 millimetres within 24 hours, according to Environment Canada. The amount greatly exceeded the average of 94 mm for the area during the entire month of August.
Data from the agency on Friday night showed an accumulation of 157 mm of rain in the Montreal region, 145 mm in downtown Montreal and 173 mm in Ste-anne-debellevue.
Denis Bélanger, civil security spokesperson for the Public Security Ministry, said 43 municipalities in the province were affected by the heavy rainfall, with flooding in 220 homes. He said there were landslides in the Laurentians and in the Lanaudière, Mauricie and Centre-du-québec regions and that 300 people had to be evacuated.
On social media, residents in many areas reported flooding in their homes, including the St-laurent borough, Laval, Beaconsfield and in Dollard-des- Ormeaux, where the civic centre took on several inches of water.
Beaconsfield resident Christine Guerrera said more than a foot of water had accumulated in the basement of her Montrose St. home by early Friday evening. “I'm bailing and mopping now,” she told The Gazette on Saturday afternoon. “It's gone down quite a bit, but it's a total disaster.”
She said neighbours she encountered on her street Friday night said they had experienced the same thing. “We were all walking up and down (the street Friday) night and sharing stories. I know our neighbours on either side of us said they have a foot of water in their basements.”
Guerrera said that as the rain continued to fall, she and her husband checked around their house, lowered the level of water in the pool and made sure their sump pump was working.
“Everything was fine but then, after a half-hour or so, there was a foot of water in the basement. It was just gushing through the shower and the toilet in the basement.”
The city of Montreal held a media briefing at about 3:30 p.m. Saturday with an update on the flooding. Marie-andrée Mauger, mayor of the Verdun borough and the person in the Projet Montréal administration responsible for ecological transition and the environment, said some municipal infrastructures remained closed, but that the entire road network was open and all STM bus lines were running.
"We know it was a trying evening, a morning, a difficult day for many home and business owners where, unfortunately, there was flooding,” she said.
Martin Guilbault, head of operations for the Montreal fire department, said at the media briefing that firefighters received 614 calls between 6:30 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday; 135 of them concerned flooding. On three occasions, firefighters used boats to help motorists trapped in their vehicles.
In the St-laurent borough, an underpass on Marcel-laurin Blvd. just north of Henri-bourassa Blvd. was still flooded late Saturday afternoon. The flooding blocked access to the most heavily used roadway in the borough, causing unusual weekend traffic jams elsewhere in St-laurent. Water often accumulates in this underpass after heavy rain.
Other parts of the province saw even greater levels of precipitation. The municipality of Lanoraie, in the Lanaudière region, was lashed with 221 mm of rain.
Quebec's Transport Ministry released a statement on Saturday saying the storm caused major damage to several roadways, with the Lanaudière and Mauricie regions hit hardest. The municipality of L'assomption in Lanaudière received 130 mm of rain and Trois-rivières, in the Mauricie region, received 103 mm.
On the Outaouais side, the Gatineau sector received 70 to 100 mm of water and about 76 mm of rain fell in Sherbrooke, in the Eastern Townships.
By Sunday, good weather had returned for the affected regions.
Some Hydro- Québec customers without power were in a flood situation, the utility said on Sunday, so power could not be restored for the time being because of safety reasons.
The heavy rains caused a fatality in the Mauricie region, in the Mékinac MRC, on Friday night, when a pedestrian was swept away by the waters of the Batiscan River after a roadway sank. Emergency services were alerted at about 11:30 p.m. to the tragedy.