Community confronts spring floods

The Ottawa River swelled upon Nancy Howard’s backyard, flooding a walkway, some trees, and a large portion of her green space.

“I got triggered because it reminded me so much of 2017 and 2019 where we battled,” said Howard, who lives with her husband along the Kanesatake shoreline. “But after a few days, it’s kind of, this is life on the shore - there’s worse things in life.”

Kanesatake had major flooding in 2017, 2019, and 2023. In that first instance, Howard said the water level reached her front lawn.

But high-water levels in the region are expected to decrease from here, said Jean Brazeau, regional director for the Laurentian and Lanaudière regions for Quebec’s Ministry of Public Security.

“The situation is now stabilized. We don’t expect any other increase of the speed of flow or the water level,” said Brazeau.

The upcoming weekend of no rain is good news for the region, he said.

“What we’re looking at is some kind of stabilization of the water level and a very slow decrease that will begin,” said Brazeau.

In Kanesatake, community members had sandbags delivered to their homes this past week by the Kanesatake Perimeter Security team (KPS) and Public Works team.

The KPS team has continuously checked the water levels of Kanehsata’kehró:non homes, said KPS coordinator Kane Montour. So far, the water from the shoreline has not reached any of the houses.

“The last couple days, we’ve been just building up the wall and trying to stop the water flooding from reaching the houses,” said Montour, referring to walls of sandbags to block out the floods.

“He’s been here almost daily coming by, checking if we need anything,” said Howard.

Five to six times during a 24-hour period Montour checks on homes, including voluntarily during the KPS off-hours past 11 p.m. along with other KPS members like Kayla Nelson.

Between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. they visit the homes of elders to check on their sump pumps.

“When they were asleep and their sump pumps shuts off, then they wake up in the morning and the basement’s flooded, so I found it was really important to just go make our rounds,” said Montour.

No sump pumps have shut off unexpectedly so far, he said.

This is important because although it may not appear water from shore has reached home, it can still seep into the basement and flood from below, said Montour. Sump pumps draw water from the basement and drain it back into the river.

Howard’s daughter came from Kingston to help her parents after she learned water had started coming into the basement.

“Our basement, we never planned to finish it anyway, so it’s just cement,” said Howard.

Montour said the KPS has sent information to local emergency services on the status of roads to make sure homes are still accessible by first responders. The KPS also installed a barrier on a flooded road in Kanesatake to avoid accidents, said Montour.

And the team is coordinating with other municipalities on their flood response, including looking into sharing a sandbag machine that fills more than a thousand bags an hour.

“Flood risk management and response are shared responsibilities among all levels of government, industry, nongovernmental organizations, communities, and individuals,” said Eleni Armenakis, spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada

“The federal government supports and coordinates with provinces, territories, and local authorities to reduce, prepare for, respond to, and recover from flooding events.”

Brazeau, of Quebec’s Ministry of Public Security, said rainfall in the coming weeks is not expected to cause flooding.

“It all depends on the quantity of rain, but they don’t expect a good amount,” said Brazeau. “It won’t have any significance for the increase of the water level.”

For Howard, she feels thankful for the KPS team and for her children for their help.

“They’re very kind when they know something’s going on with their dad and I,” said Howard.

“They’re there for us.”

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Hadassah Alencar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter