‘Shocking and overwhelming’: Water main break floods streets, basement apartments in Ville-Marie, Westmount

A water main break left streets — and at least four basement apartments — flooded in Montreal’s McGill Ghetto on Wednesday afternoon.

The Montreal fire department (SIM) says the incident began around 4 p.m. with water flowing down Aylmer Street towards Milton Street after a water main break occurred near Prince Arthur Street.

The City of Montreal says work on the water main system Wednesday led to a higher than expected increase in pressure, causing breakages and leaks in the Ville-Marie sector.

“Our teams quickly intervened to restore the situation and the quality of the water was not compromised at any time. Bottled water was distributed and toilets were installed,” the City of Montreal told CityNews in a statement.

The apartment of Alexandra Whitt and her roommate, on Aylmer, was completely flooded after water broke through their front door.

“The worst part was just like sitting in there and the front door, the dead bolts broke the wall away from the front door because it was probably about six feet deep in front of the front door holding it up, holding back,” recounted Whitt. “And yeah, that front door broke in and I just heard like a huge bang and a rush of water coming in and I just like sprinted out of the house because I was like, it’s gonna take my door out. I’m done.

“The water was pretty much rushing up over the sidewalk straight into my house.”

Firefighters on scene helped drain water about two feet deep from the basement suite. Whitt’s apartment had water in the bedrooms, kitchen, living room and bathroom.

“The firefighters were incredible,” she said. “As soon as the water was done pouring in, they were on it. They literally ripped our toilet out and they probably had almost all of the water drained from two feet down to about an inch last night within a couple hours, which I mean, the entire house two feet of water for two hours was impressive.”

CityNews spoke to others who live in the McGill Ghetto and witnessed water rushing down the street.

“When I was walking by there was just a tremendous amount of water kind of flowing down that way, like enough that you wouldn’t be able to jump over it,” said Lucas Hygate. “There’s like kind of a small river just going through the city and I mean yeah, it started right here. I ended up having to walk around just to get to my place.”

“I actually did end up walking like up that way and so I kind of saw where the pipe burst on the street and so there was a lot of water coming out and then just spreading down because it’s downhill,” added Paul Hutu.

The surge due to work on Montreal’s water network also caused several water main breaks, leaks and flooding in Westmount, with certain areas experiencing power outages and water service interruptions.

City of Westmount crews worked throughout the evening and overnight and downtown crews intervened to stabilize the pressure, which has returned to normal in most areas.

Westmount High School was closed, as the water supply to the building needed to be shut off to allow for repairs to the water line. Those repairs began Thursday morning.

Several street closures were in effect in Westmount.

The City of Montreal says officials distributed bottled water, and portable toilets were installed as about 600 downtown addresses were without water. Water quality was not compromised at any time, they say.

Hygate said he was still without water on Thursday.

“So I can’t take a shower, which is kind of annoying, but I’m just going to go to my parents’ house.”

As for Whitt, she says she has a place to stay for a few days but will have to find somewhere to live more permanently.

“It’s just almost so shocking and overwhelming that you kind of just get in a mental state of, ‘alright I guess I’m doing this now.’ A lot of calling my parents and trying not to have a breakdown.”