OTTAWA – Two of Canada’s biggest cities have declared a state of emergency and three provinces have asked for federal help to fight rising flood waters as Mother Nature’s wet wrath of spring marches across central Canada and the Atlantic.
Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante declared a state of emergency Friday afternoon saying the city had felt it had matters under control – until a rainstorm dumping as much as 60 mm of rain on already flooded regions meant the response had to be stepped up.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency for similar reasons Thursday, prompting the federal government to send 400 soldiers to help sandbag and aid in relief efforts to small rural communities on the west edge of Ottawa.
Another 1,000 soldiers were deployed to parts of Quebec earlier this week and 310 in New Brunswick. Municipalities are calling for volunteers to help if they can.
Officials are also warning people to heed orders for evacuations and road closures, and not take risks.
Federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the response to all the flooding “is an all-hands-on-deck, whole-of-government approach,” including from everyday Canadians.
“Emergency situations like these tend to bring out our better angels,” he said at a news conference in Regina. “The instincts of Canadians are to help each other. That’s who we are and that’s what we do.”
Ontario
Water regulators estimate the Ottawa River’s level will rise nearly a metre within the next few days, well above its peak in a 2017 flood that was thought to have been a once-in-a-century event.
The most serious flooding so far is in villages along the Ottawa River outside the downtown core, but a riverbank path behind Parliament is already underwater.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford visited Friday morning to meet affected homeowners and help fill some sandbags. He said the government is on “high alert” and has told Watson the province will help with whatever is needed.
“This is absolutely heart-wrenching,” Ford said. “It’s one thing to see it on the cameras, it’s another thing when you talk to the people face-to-face – and it just rips your heart out.”
Pete Davies is trying to save his bungalow in the rural Ottawa community of Woodlawn after rebuilding following the 2017 flood, which forced his family out of their home for more than two months.
“We thought we’d never see it again,” Davies said Friday.
Davies said he is using hip waders to get out of his house to get to work and he and his wife had to use a boat to get groceries home.
They’re hoping to stay in their house as long as possible this year with the help of a sump pump and generator, but Davies knows they could be forced to evacuate.
Several military trucks arrived in Woodlawn on Friday morning with soldiers and supplies, and public-health officials and firefighters used an inflatable rescue boat to go door-to-door to check on residents.
The municipality of Clarence-Rockland just east of Ottawa, as well as the towns of Bracebridge and Huntsville in the Muskoka region north of Toronto, have also declared states of emergency.
Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith asked cottage owners not to go to their properties to check for damage this weekend because there are a lot of roads closed. He is worried people will put themselves in harm’s way.
“Don’t try and be a hero,” he said.
Quebec
Several regions in the province are affected by flooding, including Gatineau and other communities along the Ottawa River, parts of Montreal and the Beauce region south of Quebec City.
Officials in Rigaud, Que., about 70 km west of Montreal, ordered evacuations in all flood-affected areas Friday morning.
Provincial officials said 3,150 homes had already been flooded and 1,111 people forced to leave. Another 2,300 homes had been isolated by flooding.
At least thirteen municipalities have declared states of emergency, including Montreal. Some of the 1,000 soldiers helping in Quebec were dispatched to help reinforce a dike just west of Montreal that was threatening to give way and force 1,000 people from their homes.
Officials in Quebec are also keeping a close eye on a hydroelectric dam, on a tributary of the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Montreal, that’s at risk of failing.
The Chute-Bell dam has reached “millennial” water levels, meaning a flood that happens once every 1,000 years, but Hydro-Quebec said it’s confident the structure is solid.
The Surete du Quebec said Friday 75 people who live downriver from the dam had been evacuated since they’d have less than an hour to get out if the dam should give way.
Gatineau mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin said Friday morning that he expects river levels in his region to peak by Monday or Tuesday. But because snow melt from the north has not yet reached the area, he said water levels could remain very high for two weeks.
Pedneaud-Jobin said more than 700 people have registered so far as flood victims, but that 4,000 people and 1,600 homes are affected overall.
While flood waters are expected to be higher than in 2017, he said the city is better prepared this time so the number of people forced to evacuate may not be higher.
New Brunswick
Flooding along the Saint John River was receding in Fredericton, where parts of the downtown core were under water this week, but the weekend rainfall is going to reverse that.
Goodale said 140 roads have been closed due to flooding including the Trans-Canada Highway between Oromocto and River Glade.
The Red Cross had registered 940 evacuees from 330 households in New Brunswick by Friday afternoon.
Manitoba
The rising Red River in southern Manitoba has forced some road closures and a small number of evacuations near the community of St. Jean Baptiste. Earlier predictions for major flooding between the U.S. border and Winnipeg haven’t come to pass because of less snowfall than expected in April and a slower than expected spring melt.
Many of the people in the flood zones in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, are feeling a sense of deja vu. The Ottawa River is flooding for the second time in just three years and the Saint John River is over its banks for the second year in a row. Red Cross officials in New Brunswick said Friday 70 per cent of the people asking for flood assistance this year, also asked last year.
The repeated flooding has politicians of all stripes pointing the finger at climate change and warning things are going to have change, and people may have to move permanently.
“I think all levels of government are learning some expensive lessons from this flooding experience of the last number of years and the message from climate change is: ‘Don’t think it is going away,”’ said Goodale. “It’s going to get progressively more and more difficult. It’s going to get worse rather than getting better.”
Ford also said having another 100-year flood just two years after the last one can be blamed on climate change.
“Something is going on and we have to be conscious of it,” he said.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault and New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs both said this week it is time to start getting homeowners in these flood prone areas to move. Ford said Friday he is willing to sit down and talk to local community leaders about what may have to happen but wouldn’t go as far as to say Ontario will require or help pay for relocations.
“These folks can’t go through this every single year,” he said.
The federal disaster-assistance program covers 90 per cent of government costs for major events, and provincial programs can help municipalities pay some bills. In 2017, the Ottawa River flooding also racked up $223 million in private insurance coverage.
Goodale said costs will be worked out once the immediate danger has subsided.
“The fact of the matter is we are all just putting our shoulder to wheel in the most effective way to make sure that the personnel and the resources are available to fight the immediate disaster and that we keep people safe and secure.”
–with files from Stephanie Taylor in Regina, Sidhartha Banerjee in Montreal, Michael Tutton in Halifax and Terry Pedwell and Kristy Kirkup in Ottawa.