‘Everything had to be thrown out’: TMR resident’s basement flooded for sixth time in 3 years

A Town of Mount Royal resident is dealing with the aftermath with yet another flood.

Last Friday, her basement was once again filled with water after Montreal’s historic rainfall — making it the sixth time her home was flooded in the last three years.

Alessandra Pasteris’ newly renovated basement was scrapped with her and her families belongings utterly destroyed.

On Wednesday, contractors were demolishing the remnants of the basement. 

“The water got into our floors and so everything has to be ripped up, we had mold growing just from the flood,” Pasteris said.

“We’ve lost everything twice in our basements we had wedding albums, the kids toys, the kids blankies that they had when they were babies,” she said. “Everything had to be thrown out.” 

Pasteris said the water levels reached two and a half feet resulting in their floors being unsalvageable. She said the family had recently renovated the basement less than two years ago from a previous flood.

In Montreal, the 175 millimetres of rain shattered the previous single-day record of 102.8 millimetres, set in 1996. It also far exceeded the average quantity of rain for the entire month of August, which is 94.1 millimetres.

As recently as early July, Pasteris dealt with flooding and already had work to do in her basement because of it, now she has to start from scratch again unsure if insurance will cover the damages.

CityNews first spoke to Pasteris on Aug. 3 as she called on the Town’s administration for a viable plan to help solve the recurring flooding.

“We want them to start mitigating some of the issues that we’re having in our homes,” she said. “Especially to all residents, but to residents who are up to code that have done everything they possibly can to protect themselves so that this wouldn’t happen again.”  

Town of Mount Royal Mayor Peter Malouf says he knows first-hand what it’s like to deal with flooding, as he recalled watching eight inches of water in his backyard going into his basement windows last week.

“I was out there with pumps and trying to evacuate all that stuff as well, so I really do understand when you have a finished basement, you’ve got furniture, you have personal items that you lose because of this flooding,” Malouf said. “We want to fix it for our residents there’s no question.”

The Town is also raising awareness on how residents can protect their homes from heavy rain by creating an information brochure.

“We’re all learning about this together and we want to make sure that how we spend our taxpayers’ money is done intelligently and it’s going to fix a problem long-term,” Malouf said. “[But] at the same time, it’s a partnership between residents and their municipality.”

Malouf says the issue is that sewage water from Côte-des-Neiges and Outremont boroughs flow into their network and work is being done to assess the hydraulic capacities in TMR. He said that TMR also has “very clay-like soil” and that the soil doesn’t absorb water the way other areas might absorb it.

“It comes through their foundation, comes through their footings, and they don’t realize that and it’s very important that you run water away from your house from your roof,” he said.

Pasteris says she’s done everything to secure her home, from hiring experts to getting second opinions, yet her home is still at-risk of flooding again.

“Moving forward is going to be very challenging and I think that in the back of my mind there will always be this thought of, ‘Oh boy, there’s rain, what’s going to happen?'”