Flooding continues across Quebec, with 37 floods recorded across the province Monday morning.
Quebec’s Outaouais region, the Laurentians and Lanaudière have so far been hardest hit by the flooding, which authorities have attributed to days of heavy rainfall and snowmelt accelerated by warm weather late last week.
One major flood was recorded in the Outaouais municipality of Fort-Coulonge, where the Ottawa River continues to rise.
On Sunday evening, the village around 115 kilometres northwest of Ottawa declared a state of emergency, asking residents to remove objects that could be washed away from the banks of the river and warning that the situation could worsen. In neighbouring Mansfield-et-Pontefract, 70 residents were reportedly ordered to evacuate their homes late Sunday.
The Montreal area has been less affected, with minor floods reported in Rivière-des-Prairies, which runs between Laval and the island of Montreal, the Mille-Îles River between Laval and the north shore and in Deux-Montagnes.
“The forecast is for the water to stabilize,” said Dimitrios Jim Beis, the Montreal executive committee member responsible for security and prevention. “We’re continuing operations as dictated in our intervention plans,” he said.
Surface flooding has occured on some Montreal properties, but water has not entered homes, Beis said.
In Pierrefonds-Roxboro, where Beis is borough mayor, municipal workers have installed modular dyke walls.
“If we didn’t have them, particularly in the low-lying areas, we’d be flooded already,” Beis said.
Rising water levels required some roads in Laval to close Sunday, as well as a section of L’Anse-à-l’Orme Rd. in Pierrefonds-Roxboro.
I’ve reported for The Gazette since 2024. I love covering a good politics story, but any day I tell Montrealers something new about the world around them feels like a good one. Got a tip for me? Email me at jawilson@postmedia.com