Pierrefonds residents narrowly avoid disaster after dike breach

It was just before 7 a.m. Tuesday when Pierrefonds resident Imad Alsalehi awoke to his father's screams downstairs.

He jumped out of bed and saw what was causing the commotion: water rushing over and through the wall of sandbags outside their window on De Gaulle Street.

The Alsalehi family's neighbours were seeing the same thing. They all rushed outside to try to stop the water.

"I was going crazy. I was running everywhere, no shoes, nothing, and I was helping everybody, putting plastic bags beside the house," Alsalehi, 22, recounted to CBC News.

Thinking quickly, Alsalehi called 911 to alert authorities to what was happening.

Alsalehi said at the top of his mind was what happened in Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac over the weekend — when thousands had to flee their homes after water from the Lake of Two Mountains breached the dike, flooding the community.

He worried the same thing was about to happen in Pierrefonds.

"It's the first thing I thought of," he said. "I thought, like, 'It's done, it's finished.'"

A couple of dozen soldiers had been working nearby, and they were at the makeshift dike within minutes. Then came police officers and firefighters.

Working madly, they were able to rebuild the wall of sandbags, and the soldiers installed tall wood panels to reinforce it.

"I was running, running. I was putting the pumps and making sure everybody was ready. The cars, we put them up the street," said a breathless Alsalehi.

"It's crazy, it's crazy."

• What to do if you're in a flood zone — and how to help if you're not

Alsalehi believes the dike broke after a neighbour's garage, which was filled with water, opened and let water out, putting pressure on the sandbags.

In the aftermath, cleanup crews are helping clear the water that jumped the dike, but Alsalehi says he's just glad it wasn't worse.