Cut off from drinking water and roads, Quebec towns face daunting cleanup after flooding
Storm was 'like a tsunami coming down,' says mayor
Yvon Deshaies has never seen flooding like he did last week in his town of Louiseville, Que.
"It's like a tsunami coming down over the city," said Deshaies, the mayor of the municipality 160 kilometres southwest of Quebec City.
"There was nothing we could do. There was so much water."
He estimates 300 residents were affected by the flooding and about 50 people had to find a place to stay with family, friends or neighbours.
As of Monday, days after the remnants of tropical storm Debby drenched much of southern Quebec, the water that filled the streets of Louiseville has receded.
But Deshaies says the cleanup is only just beginning.
"It's the basements that people are cleaning up," said Deshaies. "It's sunny out there, and people are smiling all the same."
The storm caused damage across the southern part of the province, including Montreal.
"People are losing a good portion of their lives, not just material," said Île-Bizard—Sainte-Geneviève borough Mayor Doug Hurley.
"I literally had people coming to work, and they're looking, and they're crying" because of the damage to their own home, he added.
As of Monday, Quebec's Public Security Ministry said 52 municipalities were impacted, about 350 people have been evacuated from their homes and 52 landslides occurred, primarily in the Laurentians.
They said about 150 roads suffered either major or minor damage and 900 homes were cut off from drinking water.
No running water
Jean-Pierre Clavet, owner of Ferme Le Crépuscule, is one of them.
Operating a small organic farm in Yamachiche, in Quebec's Mauricie region, Clavet says he's had to figure out how to get water for his 50 cattle, 400 turkeys and 1,000 chickens.
"I have to wake up during the night and see if all my cattle got some water and all the turkey and chickens, everybody's got water," said Clavet.
To pick up water, he now needs to drive north to another municipality.
He says it normally takes up to 4,000 litres of water to operate his farm each day. A resident of the town for 35 years, he says the situation has never been this dire.
Out of the 3,000 people who live in Yamachiche, 10 to 15 per cent don't have running water, says Mayor Paul Carbonneau. He says the issue originates in a neighbouring municipality, which must repair a leak.
In the meantime, Carbonneau says the town will "roll up our sleeves."
"Yamachiche is in cleanup mode.… There are other things to do," said Carbonneau.
"The roads were repaired temporarily but we have to see what needs to be done on a permanent basis."
Denis Bélanger, regional director for the Public Security Ministry, says he hopes more people will regain access to water by the end of Monday.
"After three days with no water is it is a big situation," said Bélanger.
"In the last few months, few years, we're getting used to these kind of rains, these kind of disasters.… But this one is particular, it's pretty big with at some places they receive more than 200 millimetres of rain. I didn't see that since [the] beginning of my work."
Around 150 residents are still stranded because of closed roads in Shawinigan, Que., says mayor Michel Angers.
He says the town will be delivering essential supplies on Tuesday and suspects the storm has resulted in $10 million in damages.
"Shawinigan is a city with many, many hills, many lakes, many rivers, so it had a very big impact," he said.
7 municipalities remain under state of emergency
"Everything happened very quickly," said Catherine Denis-Sarrazin, deputy general director with the town of Rivière-Rouge, Que., 170 kilometres north west of Montreal.
She says some roads are still closed because of landslides.
"You also have to understand that we at Rivière Rouge have a huge territory to cover," said Denis-Sarrazin. "We don't have a large population, but the territory is huge."
As of Monday, seven municipalities in Quebec were still under a state of emergency. Those include Yamachiche, Wentworth, Rivière-Rouge, Saint-Sulpice, Saint-Lin–Laurentides, Sainte-Julienne and Saint-Didace, Que.
The mayors of La Macaza and Saint-Lin-Laurentides, which have both declared states of emergency, say it will take months to repair the damage to roads from flooding that was so bad it left hundreds of people temporarily
stranded.
Mathieu Maisonneuve, mayor of Saint-Lin-Laurentides, about 65 kilometres north of Montreal, says he's barely slept since Friday and worries that Quebec isn't prepared for extreme weather events that are becoming more frequent.
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With files from Kim Garritty, Émilie Warren, Holly Cabrera, Mélissa François and The Canadian Press