On Saturday morning, du Ruisseau Avenue in Cartierville was peaceful and calm.
But residents say, that’s because they just overcame a storm, that none of them were expecting.
READ MORE: Quebec Floods: Montreal state of emergency to be lifted Sunday
“The last time we had some flooding like this was in the 1970s, so 40 or 50 years ago,” said resident Denis Lemieux. “So I said, something big is coming.”
Residents said when the flooding began a few weeks ago, the city initially built a dike with sandbags.
A few days later, when the water surpassed it, city officials came once again, to build a 3-foot barrier.
But none of that was enough for the four feet of water that had accumulated.
So, residents built their own wall.
“We worked from the afternoon all the way until 10 o’clock at night, soaking wet,” said resident Grace Warren. “We got all of the scrap wood we could find and just built that wall.”
Neighbours collected wood, sandbags, cement, and even filled garbage bins with water.
READ MORE: As flood waters recede, here’s what to do with all those sandbags
Eventually, they created a barrier and luckily, it worked.
“An insurance company came here to see the damage of other houses around in the area, and they said we saved more than $1 million in insurance damage,” Lemieux said. “We’re quite proud.”
That pride has extended to the children in the neighbourhood.
Watching their parents save their street has taught them an important life lesson.
“It taught us that in teamwork, we can build great things,” Warren’s son, Theo Vachon, said.
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