Hundreds of Montrealers forced to evacuate amid water main break

Hundreds of Montrealers were worken up from their sleep on Friday morning, to a major water main break that flood streets and homes – and forced to evacuate.

Lyman Zhu said he woke up to what sounded like “heavy rain” and when he looked out his window saw a “wall of water” that was about 10 metres high and the width of the street. “It was insane,” he said.

“It went by under my basement,” said Richard Lemmetti, a resident in the area.

“My only concern when they put the electricity because the wire comes by the basement. The electricity comes by the basement. So, let’s hope it didn’t damage the wires,” he added.

Maxime Carignan Chagnon said the “giant wall of water” gushed for about two hours. The rushing water was “very, very strong,” he said, splashing as it crashed against lampposts and trees. “It was truly impressive.” He said about two feet of water collected in his basement, but “I heard some people had much, much more.”

The major water main break broke out around 6 a.m. near the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, spilling a large amount of water into nearby streets and forcing the evacuation of nearby buildings.

“It seems to be like a freak accident of sorts,” said one Montreal resident to CityNews. “Basically, screw ups like that, they happen maybe once every 20 years or something like that. It’s not like it’s something that is completely unheard of, but at the same time, I don’t feel like it’s necessarily a cause for concern. Otherwise, a lot of other places would be failing all at the same time.”

“I woke up today and there’s so much construction out the window,” said Amanda who recently moved to the area. “Our power’s actually out. And our water, they say we can’t drink it. We don’t have lights, nothing. So, I got dressed in the dark today and me and my sister are looking for a cafe to work, so it’s bad. I’m said to my sister that I hope this is not a regular occurrence because this is a nightmare, honestly.”

Hydro cut power to the affected area as a precaution, leaving about 13,000 clients without electricity.

Several STM bus lines were also being diverted.

“At five in the morning, we opened the TV and saw there was a huge amount of water coming out from the iHeart building, beside the Radio-Canada station and they cut off the electricity in our building,” said Mr. Gauthier, who works in the area. The water isn’t potable, so we have to boil the water if we want to drink it and now we’re waiting for Hydro-Quebec.”

Martin Guilbault, division chief of the Montreal fire department, said people should stay away from the flooded area until authorities give the green light to return.

“Just because there is less water doesn’t mean the work is done,” he said, explaining that parts of streets could be damaged and give way from all the water that poured over them.

The exact cause of the break is still unknown.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said that citizens should avoid the area for the whole day if possible and that the work may take up to several days if necessary.

“Please avoid the area on foot, by car or by bike, don’t come to the area. The other thing is, to be sure, especially for local people, the water quality has not been affected, so there’s no boil water advisory. The teams in place have at least a day’s work ahead of them, so they can carry out repairs afterwards. So we’re talking hours, even days, several days.”

One Montreal resident went out for a bike ride to surveil the situation and says the city’s infrastructure has been neglected for a long time.

“The infrastructure, we know it’s been neglected for many, many years, but to see scenes like we saw this morning, with the water going up two stories high, one wonders how much water was wasted for this neglect. We have to do something about it, hopefully the sooner the better. But yeah, something has to be done about it.”

People whose homes have been flooded by the water main break and who need help can go to the Accès Montréal office of the Ville-Marie borough, located on the first floor of 800, boul. de Maisonneuve Est.

“I’m on the second floor so I don’t have any problems but our tenants in the small apartment downstairs, he’s got six feet of water. So everything is finished there,” said Robert Sevigny, a nearby resident.

Julien Morin, the owner of La Morin mustards has been here since 8 a.m., doing what he could to save his inventory.

“As a business owner, well, we lost a lot. It’s, we lost pretty much everything. So we tried to save, you know, material and machines and everything, but…it was too dangerous so we just evacuated the area,” explained Morin.

“It’s absurd. I mean, I’m really, I’m shocked.”

-With files from The Canadian Press