Over the last five days Thomas Little has lost the struggle to save his house in Gatineau, Que. from flooding. But, Little says, the rising water on the Gatineau River is not the normal spring swell he is used to. In Little's opinion this flood was preventable, caused by poor dam management along the river, which makes his loss more difficult to bear. He tells Checkup host Duncan McCue that the City of Gatineau should have done more to save houses in his community from damage, including calling the army in sooner.

Thomas Little: I'll just give you my situation real quickly. I live on the Gatineau River and I estimate that the river has risen 15 feet in the last four or five days. I have laid out 7,000 sandbags. My hands have seven Band-Aids on them because I'm bleeding. And I do apologize to everybody, I'm a little stressed out.

Duncan McCue: Have you ever had to do anything like this before, Thomas?

TL: I've lived on this property for 22 years and I understand that many, many years back in '74 there was a big flood like this in this area. But what I find very curious about this whole situation is that on my street there is one house left and the rest have all been flooded. And the army is just showing up now. A little late. I think the army should have been brought in last Monday. I probably would have been able to save my home.

The Gatineau River - the whole Ottawa watershed - is controlled by dams. That makes this flood a person flood, not environment - person. This has nothing to do with the environment. I'm not a climate denier because I do agree with some of the stuff they talk about but this is a disaster. And it's a manmade disaster as far as I'm concerned.

DM: You mentioned that you put up that sandbag wall. What's happened with that?

TL: It collapsed in. I just couldn't keep up.

DM: So how's your house?

TL: I've got about 3 ½ feet of water in my basement right now. I've got so many wonderful people - the City of Gatineau workers are wonderful, my neighbours have been wonderful, my councilman has been wonderful. The City of Gatineau didn't call a state of emergency. The army came in yesterday. I walked down my street this morning and there were no army people to help. There was a guy with a backhoe who's been here the whole time working like a dog.

I've done everything I can do. There's nothing else I can do. And when the Ottawa River and the Gatineau River are controlled by dams I find that if I'm blaming the environment and snow and rain… Ok, the river does rise. I have a 10 foot wall in front of my house between the river and myself. And that usually handles any overflow, and it does rise every year like it's supposed to, but this year it kept on going and kept on going. They're releasing dams.

DM: So what's your basement look like right now?

TL: That's where I live, is in my basement. Beautiful view of the river. I get up in the morning and look at the wonderful river. It's a wonderful place and it's now soaked and I'll have to tear it apart and rebuild it.

I'm not going to leave. I've been hearing rumours of looting. So I will not leave the house. I'm going to be here for - I don't know how many weeks, living like this. I'm just venting. But I was listening to a lot of people talking about the environment. What happened to me and what happened to all my neighbours and the City of Gatineau, in my personal opinion, has to do with people - I wouldn't say not doing their job, but something is wrong. Something happened here. Because calling in the army when it's too late is nice but it's not helpful.

If I had a company of soldiers on this street they could have built a wall for every house here and we could have saved every house. So why didn't the City of Gatineau or the province call in the army sooner? It's ridiculous. And why did it flood? I mean, I don't think it was environment. I think it was somebody holding back the water in the dams too much and now they're forced to release it quickly.

DM: Thank you for taking time to phone checkup and let people right across the country know what you're going through in Gatineau right now. I hope you do get some rest.

TL: I think this show you're doing is very important. I hope that everybody understands that the community has to stick together and work together to help their fellow person. And I'd like to say again that my neighbours, and a lot of the people that have been helping with the sandbags, I thank them dearly.