{"id":795292,"date":"2026-07-11T15:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T15:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795292\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T15:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T15:48:13","slug":"west-islanders-hit-by-flooding-feel-abandoned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795292\/","title":{"rendered":"West Islanders hit by flooding ‘feel abandoned’"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Flooding in parts of the West Island has become a nearly annual occurrence. Now, residents \u2014 1,500 and counting \u2014 are fighting back.<\/p>\n

Two proposed class-action lawsuits are taking aim at the cities of Montreal and Dollard-des-Ormeaux. The lawsuits allege the municipalities were \u201cgrossly negligent\u201d in preparing for last month\u2019s flash floods that left drainage systems overwhelmed and basements ruined. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve already seen what happens, and you still failed to act. I think we\u2019ve gone further than just negligence,\u201d said Jeff Orenstein, the Consumer Law Group lawyer behind the class actions.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aThey say lightning never strikes twice in the same place. That would be an act of God. But I\u2019ve got news for you. We just saw it strike twice in the same place, 2024 and again in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orenstein and Paul Henry Danylewich, president of the Association of the Citizens of Dollard, joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week\u2019s episode of The Corner Booth at the Snowdon Deli to talk about how government inaction has spurred this fight.<\/p>\n

\"Two\u201cThere is nobody stepping up to get involved,\u201d says Paul Henry Danylewich, left, president of the Association of the Citizens of Dollard, seated beside lawyer Jeff Orenstein. Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n

\u201cThe citizens feel abandoned on the municipal, provincial and the federal level. There is nobody stepping up to get involved,\u201d Danylewich said. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI don\u2019t know why they didn\u2019t call a state of emergency. I don\u2019t know why they didn\u2019t reach out to the province and say, \u2018Hey, we need help.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWe\u2019re going on three weeks and there\u2019s still garbage in front of some of the homes. That\u2019s not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both guests had their homes affected by the flooding. Orenstein said demolition and sanitation of his basement, which was flooded with four to five feet of water, has already cost \u200a$22,500.<\/p>\n

And while both want the cities held accountable for damages already incurred, there\u2019s also a fear about the future in an area where quick rainfalls (as much as 170 mm of rain fell on June 20) have become the norm.<\/p>\n

\"Two\u201cStorms are not the same as they were in 1988,\u201d says lawyer Jeff Orenstein, right, seated beside Paul Henry Danylewich, president of the Association of the Citizens of Dollard. Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n

\u200a\u201dStorms are not the same as they were in 1988. When you had a flood in 1988, it was the entire city that was covered,\u201d Orenstein said. \u201cNow what we have is where you get an area that gets hit rapidly, like what happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danylewich added: \u201cAnother concern that I had from the D.D.O. council meeting was that the mayor mentioned that rescue resources are finite. We only have a certain amount of resources that we can put out in a catastrophe, and that\u2019s unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aThe message I got from that meeting is that if we have a really big problem, we\u2019re out of luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Corner Booth is also available on The Gazette\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a> and on Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flooding in parts of the West Island has become a nearly annual occurrence. Now, residents \u2014 1,500 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-795292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}