Alain Furlano is finally able to walk freely into his home again.
Last month, Furlano was arrested for trying to save his family home.
READ MORE: Quebec floods: Pierrefonds resident arrested during relief efforts to remain behind bars
He wanted to build a temporary dike on 5th Avenue North in Pierrefonds-Roxboro because the street was completely flooded.
But Furlano wasn’t allowed to do that and police arrested him after he refused to obey their orders.
READ MORE: Quebec floods: Pierrefonds man arrested during flood relief efforts granted bail
Furlano was held by police for 55 hours.
After several court appearances, he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for an unconditional discharge.
READ MORE: West Island resident arrested during flood relief efforts granted discharge
“That was the deal,” Furlano said. “I plead guilty and no criminal record and we’ll move on because it was really intense at some point.”
Though the last few weeks have been difficult, Furlano says he wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again if it meant saving his street.
“Of course I would do it again,” he said. “I had no criminal intention by doing what I did. I was just helping my neighbours and saving the street. So I would do it again, yes. Would I do it differently? Yeah, maybe there’s a few things I would do differently.”
The temporary dike that was eventually built near 5th Avenue has now been removed.
Furlano says he and others on the street won’t start to rebuild until a permanent solution is put in place.
“We have to get that dike built, that’s the priority,” he said. “Without that dike, there’s no use in fixing the basement at this point because we don’t want it to happen again.”
Furlano says the mayor promised to meet with residents of individual streets to address their particular concerns at the last council meeting but that meeting has yet to be scheduled.
The borough told Global News that meeting won’t happen until at least the fall.
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