‘our whole neighbourhood is flooded’: west island residents left devastated by weekend storms

it was not the father’s day they had planned for. instead of celebrating with family, many west island residents spent sunday hauling soaked furniture to the curb, discarding food they worried had gone bad and photographing the damage to their basements as they prepared to file insurance claims.julie anne lochhead’s husband is 6-foot-1 and on saturday night, after 100 to 170 millimetres of rain had fallen within two hours, he stood in water up to his chest in the garage of their pierrefonds home. for them, it’s the third flood in two years, she said. and because the power had been turned off, their pumps didn’t work. the basement couches are ruined, as is the furniture of their children whose bedrooms are in the basement.“it’s frustrating for me — and the kids were freaking out,” lochhead said. “they keep on building condos and overloading the sewer system that can’t even keep up.”the family is accustomed to placing sandbags during rainstorms, and to the manhole near their house overflowing. she said they have reached out to authorities “many, many times."“a hundred and fifty millimetres of rain in an hour is a lot. i get it. plus an overflow in the sewage system and the street being made the way it is — the street slopes, so the accumulation of water is absolutely insane,” lochhead said. "and the power having to be cut. our food is going bad. all the furniture in the basement is ruined. our whole neighbourhood is flooded.”the driveway, which is on a steep slope, filled with water. while they have been flooded before, she said “this time, about 3½ feet, is the worst.”

rina blincoe has lived in pierrefonds her entire life “and i have never seen water like this,” she said. “it was coming down in buckets for an hour and a half.”at one point, her husband was in water up to his waist in the garage, which they had just renovated. the water seeped from there into the basement. “the furnace is toast — the hot water tank, the washer-dryer. everything is gone. this is a first,” she said.as quebecers dealt with the aftermath of saturday's heavy thunderstorms, which also flooded streets and basements in parts of the south shore and outaouais regions, environment canada warned of more thunderstorms and more flooding.just before 2 p.m. sunday, the agency issued a severe thunderstorm warning covering areas affected by saturday's floods — "namely dollard-des-ormeaux, pierrefonds, Île-bizard, the western part of laval and their immediate surroundings. this rain could contribute to more flash flooding due to the vulnerabilities that began (saturday) evening." the warning was lifted by 3 p.m.environment canada issued a separate severe thunderstorm watch earlier sunday for the island of montreal, warning that “conditions are once again favourable to the repeated formation of showers and thunderstorms, which may cause flooding.”severe thunderstorm watches are issued “when conditions are favourable for the development of thunderstorms capable of producing damaging hail, wind or rain,” the agency said.“the ground has a reduced ability to absorb rain, especially in areas affected by heavy rain (saturday). heavy rain can cause flash flooding and significant reductions to visibility.”by 8 p.m. sunday, about 700 montreal-area addresses remained without power, down from the 20,000 affected by hydro-québec outages saturday evening as a result of the severe weather.

pierrefonds-roxboro borough mayor jim beis, who is responsible for security and prevention with the city of montreal's executive committee, said homes that had never experienced flooding before were affected this time around.“the simple answer is because we had incredible amounts of rain in such a short period and, in areas which were probably on the cusp of getting flooded, it shot past that threshold," he said on sunday. "the rainfall happens in such a short period that it is impossible for cities to put in safeguards to protect neighbourhoods. the storm sewer system doesn’t have enough space to accommodate all that water.“there were entire streets with four feet of water last night. these are things we have never seen before at this magnitude. it’s impossible to prepare for that: it rained for two hours straight. i mean, that is unheard of.”also, as the city of montreal notes in a section on its website about flooding: “climate change is leading to increasingly intense rainfall episodes. unusually large quantities of water can overload the city’s sewer system, causing overflows onto the street or property.”that said, people whose properties have sustained damage are devastated and “it is a very difficult time for them," beis said. “certainly i empathize with them.”beis said he was in touch sunday morning with domestic security minister ian lafrenière about the need for a continuing discussion about the responsibility of government to give homeowners tools to waterproof their homes.“studies have shown there are ways to protect your homes,” he said.sponge doors exist that don’t let water through downslope driveways, for instance, although they are expensive.“right now, the main issue is to make sure people are safe,” beis said. to that end, he lauded the work of police, firefighters and municipal work crews.saturday’s flooding is distinct from spring flooding caused by backflow from the rivière des prairies, beis said. barriers and pumps installed at different intersections have been effective at preventing flooding in areas that were previously prone to it, like the intersection of pierrefonds and st-jean blvds., he said.but even when water levels in the river are low, if an extreme amount of rain falls at street level, “the storm sewers are not designed to accommodate that volume of rainwater falling at that rate.”

water came up saturday afternoon through the drains in the underground parking garage of the dollard-des-ormeaux townhouse complex where barbara frost lives with her husband. “our garage totally flooded and as the water rose, it started leaking into our homes,” she said. “each basement has a drain and because we are in attached units, i started seeing water seeping from my attached neighbour. it was unstoppable,” said the retired pre-k teacher.in 2024, when an intense rainstorm caused damage in many west island homes, theirs was spared. “but this was more rain and it was way more intense,” frost said of saturday’s thunderstorm.“when we got up this morning, the water had drained out of our garage and basement,” she said. “right now all my floors are lifted and my walls have sustained at least a foot and a half of damage.”also damaged was an l-shaped couch in the basement, a television, and the items on the lower toy shelf in the play area set up for her grandchildren.frost salvaged what she could — a lot was stored in plastic bins — and everything else went out on the curb.

there was 2½ feet of water in the basement of her dollard-des-ormeaux home on saturday evening when melissa desmarais, a social media content creator, returned from a work trip to prince edward island. she landed at the new montreal metropolitan airport terminal on the south shore and started to drive home. there was so much water on the streets around her house that she had to park some blocks away. she left her luggage in the vehicle and walked home, her carry-on bag on her shoulder and the water up above her knees for a while.the drywall in her basement will have to be replaced, along with the baseboard heaters, floor, couches, bookcases and mattress in the basement, desmarais said, and nearly all the kids’ toys in the basement were ruined.this was the first time her home had flooded, she said. “there was just so much water going into the ground. it is coming up from the ground.“we are very lucky. we have a pretty good spirit about things,” said desmarais, who is married to jean-philippe bolduc, a former cfl defensive back.his former teammates pitched in on sunday, helping to strip the basement, “and all the stuff we couldn’t salvage is at the curb,” desmarais said.

the power went out shortly before 6 p.m. saturday at the pierrefonds cottage cynthia rombionti shares with her husband, “and there was hail falling from the sky.”water seeped up through the drain in the garage into the basement family room, and under the parquetry floor and the storage space under the stairs. everything from vinyl albums and christmas decorations to carpets stored there was ruined.“in our bad luck, it’s not so bad. i am hearing that for some people it’s the second or third time they have been flooded since 2017. this will be our first insurance claim,” rombionti said.by midday sunday, the power had not yet been restored. “that’s father’s day. let’s just say my husband’s not in the celebratory mood,” she said.