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Residents ready to evacuate, stocking up on hip waders
'When it goes up, it goes up. When it comes down, I clean'
WILLIAM MARSDEN
The Gazette
Monday, April 21, 2008
Hudson resident Jim Soter rows through his neighbour's yard Sunday. TIM SNOW/The Gazette
Hundreds of Quebecers have begun preparations to evacuate their homes as warm temperatures continue to increase snow melt in the Laurentian mountains, raising the water levels on the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers to flood levels.
Levels became so high during the weekend that Hydro-Québec was forced to open the 14 sluice gates at the Carillon Dam at Point Fortune, increasing downstream flow and raising water levels by as much a 25 centimetres.
Over a period of one day, water flow through the dam rose to 6,060 cubic metres per second, from 5,690. This is the largest maximum flow through the dam since 1997 and the 10th-largest since 1964.
What's more, Hydro-Québec has warned residents downriver that it may be forced to release more water today, which will boost levels another 25 centimeters.
"The one bit of good news is that there is no ice on the rivers that would cause ice jams," said Jean-Pierre Bazinet of the Quebec Department of Public Security. Bazinet said the water levels are expected to continue to rise throughout the week.
The critical time should begin today and end by Friday, Marc Lavallée, director of the Montreal region for the public security ministry, said.
"As long as municipalities can supply ambulance services and fire services, people will be allowed to stay in their homes," he said.
In the greater Montreal area only two families had decided to leave their homes even though 35 houses have already been flooded and 75 sections of roads are under water.
Two men determined to stay put are Hudson residents Jim Soter, 63, and his neighbour Pierre Savaria, 69.
Soter's tiny cottage yesterday afternoon was a blue island surrounded by dark water gently but menacingly lapping at his concrete foundation. He had constructed an elevated wooden walkway and ramp to get to his porch.
As of yesterday afternoon, his basement was inundated and the water level was only half a metre below his floor boards. He can expect levels to continue to rise. The water has flooded the road behind his house and is slowly creeping up a hill toward the main road through Hudson.
Soter had turned off his two sump pumps because there is no longer any point.
"I'd be pumping water into water," he said.
His septic tank is also flooded, so he uses the toilet at a local gas station.
Soter's property is on the lowest part of the river bank in Hudson. He said he's always the first to get flooded and the last to see the water recede.
"I'm used to it," he said. "I've been living here since 1988, but the cottage has been in my family since 1951. That's why it really doesn't phase me, although it is a pain."
Savaria was behind his house in his hip waders, waist deep in water yesterday trying rescue the white tarps of his temporary garage. As he reached deep into the water to pull out a tarp, he fell in, but still managed to resurface with the tarp. Getting a dunking didn't seem to phase him in the least.
Unlike Soter, his basement isn't flooded. Nevertheless, he cleared out the furniture and piled it on his back porch and put his washing machine in his garage as a precaution. He's stacked sandbags about half a metre at the front of his driveway and hopes they'll be enough to keep the water from penetrating down the slop and into his basement. The water is already several inches high.
"If by chance the water comes over, I lose my furnace and my hot water heater, but that's all," he said.
Savaria and his wife have lived here since 1976, so they are used to the occasional spring flood. But, he said, it's been 10 years since it was as bad as now.
"I'm not nervous." he said. "It's water. When it goes up, it goes up. When it comes down, I clean."
In Laval, there were 25 streets with some flooding as of yesterday.
Laval police officer Nathalie Lorrain said it is the worst flooding in several years as the Milles Îles river rose six centimetres.
She said the city has handed out 27,000 sandbags so far and there's more if needed.
Lorrain said one major problem for homeowners is curious residents driving through flooded streets stirring up waves that then lap up against homes.
She asked that people not come to flooded areas.
Homeowners in Île Bizard-Ste. Geneviève aren't as lucky. They complained that the city told them they would have to obtain and pay for their own sandbags.
"They said they only had a limited amount and they were stopping deliveries," Jean-François Dubreuil said.
Most worrisome is the water coming from the upper parts of the Ottawa River. The 35 dams on the river above Hull are already straining.
Lake Temiskaming, which is close to the headwaters of the Ottawa River, reached 177.07 metres by yesterday morning. That's not unusually high. But that fact that it increased 23 centimeters in one day is.