Many of the communities along the riverbanks in Eastern Canada were hit hard by flooding this past week. Paramedic Manon Lavergne is at the centre of the relief effort in her town of Clarence-Rockland, Ont. on the Ottawa River. Downstream, where the Ottawa River meets the St. Lawrence River, Tanya Vording is ready to evacuate the small island of Île-Bizard in Quebec. Both women were impressed by the effort that the people in their communities have shown during this disaster.

During Cross Country Checkup's show on the floods, Lavergne and Vording told host Duncan McCue what it was like to be on the ground during a major disaster.

Duncan McCue: This is day six for you. How are you doing?

Manon Lavergne: We're doing OK. We had a little bit of a pump failure last night. And I don't know if you heard but they shut down the gas yesterday which created an issue with eating and some appliances being served by natural gas. And this afternoon they shut down the power on our streets. So we had an hour to flip to a generator and make sure that all the effort that we've done for the last six days was able to continue, and maintain the level of dryness in our house.

DM: What is the water situation on your street right now?

ML: Well, our street now, if you want to move from one end to the other you have to have a boat. So there's no loaders or anything that can actually come into our street. It's actually closed. Some areas have more than five feet of water so even if you have those nice hip waders it's not going to work for you. So now we're in a situation where we need life jackets and any boat or a kayak, or any floatable device.

DM: How much water is getting into people's houses?

ML: We're at day six of the operation and people were well informed of how high it could potentially go. There is wall and people are maintaining the dryness around their houses, so that we basically created a pool and dropped a pump to empty the water around the houses. So far there's probably a little bit of leaking because the pressure is so high that it's going in through the floor.

But I want to say that the majority of the residents here are still fighting even though we had the city shut down the power. We're still fighting to continue to keep our house dry.

DM: How many have had to leave their homes?

ML: I believe at this point there's only three residents on the street that left their homes. The rest have family, friends, volunteers who are continuing to raise the wall around the houses and maintaining supervision on the pumps and the generator.

DM: You've got two kids. How are they doing?

ML: They're stressed about it. One is with a friend, the other one is with grandpa. And my dog is actually sent to a friend. So yeah it's difficult but we're managing. We just need a little bit of a reprieve to be able to sleep a little bit.

DM: Have they been going to school over the past few days?

ML: Yeah they've been going to school. The teachers are very accommodating. They understand the situation. Mom and dad are both emergency workers so they know when it's real. They know when mom and dad are in activation mode.

But they have a lot of support in school because we're not the only ones. I don't know how many kids are affected by this but there is more than just our kids that are affected.

DM: So how are the kids getting to school right now?

ML: Well since yesterday they've been evacuated. We don't want them to be around the river because obviously they're shorter than mom and dad. And it's a stress for mom and dad to be able to just monitor where they are. We had a little bit of grass yesterday. Now the grass is completely gone because the water has raised so much. So we actually put them in a safer place where we don't have to manage the situation and be a parent on top of that.

DM: You mentioned that you've been getting family support. Neighbours are all sticking together. Have you seen any signs of the military at all?

ML: No. So far, none on my street. We've met some volunteer military personnel who are donating their time but not on military duty. They have a little bit more background so we're able to give them tasks that are more associated with the recovery or going to houses to do some assessments of the people and helping with generators and all that. So it's nice when we get those special teams to come into a situation where it's already difficult to manage.

DM: Manon, I'm going to bring someone else into the conversation if you'll stay with us, OK?

Tanya Vording is in Île-Bizard, Quebec. That's an island on the north side of the island of Montreal right where the Ottawa River hits the St. Lawrence. Hi Tanya, how are you doing?

Tanya Vording: This morning I left Île-Bizard and there was a little bit of traffic and it wasn't so bad. But two hours after the water rose about 10 centimetres and I could hardly get back on the island. It took me about over an hour to get back on. And now they told people it's a voluntary evacuation. Like people can leave Île-Bizard if they feel they need to leave. The people that are close to the water have a forced evacuation. And I actually believe I can hear the military helicopters - they are shaking my house right now.

I have to say that the firefighters have been incredible. I was there yesterday at my boyfriend's house, which is now flooded. Up his street they have been working day and night - nonstop. And it's amazing to see.

DM: what's it like for you watching the water rise like that?

TV: Well, I'm going to be honest, it's really surreal. Getting back on the island was like a movie. People are honking. Everyone is trying to get off the island. People are walking with their luggage over the bridge. A lady flipped me off screaming: 'my house is flooded' out of her car. I feel like I'm in a movie. It's surreal.

DM: And you just found out in the past couple of hours that an evacuation has been suggested. How are you responding to that?

TV: I'm packing my things. I'm not going to rush. I'm trying not to panic. I have an 11-year-old. I started packing her things. I also have animals that I'm packing. Luckily I'm able to stay at my sister's house. I would prefer to leave now because they said overnight it's going to rise another 10 centimetres which might mean that people on the island may be...I don't think I will be stranded, but it'll be a lot harder to get off the island. So I would prefer leaving earlier, when they suggested to us, than getting forced out.

DM: You mentioned the firefighters - are you getting support from anyone else? The municipality or the province or the military?

TV: The firefighters that I've seen everywhere, on every corner of the street, they are packing sandbags. I have friends, I see their children packing sandbags. I feel like there was a lot of denial, on Thursday and Friday. They were like 'it's fine, it's going to go away,' and now I think we're coming together as a community and people are really starting to see how serious this is.

I know there are a lot of people thinking that the firemen and the government aren't really with us, or something like that. I'm hearing a lot of that all over the place. But I have witnessed a lot of help, because I've been out the last few days. I've been filming and I've seen so much help. I've seen them working. Île-Mercier is completely flooded - the islands off Île-Bizard. I have a friend that lives there. I think the water was a little higher than the basement. People are helping them. The community is finally getting together and helping a lot.

DM: Manon, if I could bring you back into this conversation. Tanya just described how the community in Île-Bizard is starting to pull together even though there was denial before. How is your community pulling together in Clarence-Rockland?

ML: Oh my God. On day two of the operation, when we actually sent out the first request for help via social media, we got over a hundred responses saying, 'what do you need? Where do you want me?' Family, friends and people we don't even know were stopping on our street and helping. The community has come together.

I'm super proud to be part of this community. We have a Facebook page that we started earlier during the operation to ensure that we have a means of asking the community if we had any specific issue or specific items. And it's working great. When we needed a boat or a generator we just posted on the Facebook page and in an instant we had it. So the community came together.