Flood watch continues in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue

Residents in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue are on edge again.

Floodwaters from the Lake of Two Mountains have been slowly rising since heavy rains last week. It’s discouraging to some residents because things were looking up.

“(The floodwaters) went down a little bit,” said Kevin O’Connell, manager at Annies Restaurant by the waterfront. “It receded about a week ago but it’s up now — it’s rising daily.”

On Sunday, water had covered about a third of a public parking lot next to the waterfront.

“Pretty soon, there won’t be anywhere for people to park, and that’s going to affect us,” Basile Restaurant manager George Papachronis explained.

Clients for some of the bars and restaurants nearby use the public parking space.

Earlier, the town issued a warning advising residents that though significant rainfall wasn’t expected over the weekend, the lake level had risen about 13 centimetres in two days and was expected to go up another five centimetres by Sunday night. Now, once again, sections of the boardwalk in Ste. Anne village have been closed off.

“It’s over the dike,” O’Connell said, pointing to where the water is now lapping inches from his terrace. “It’s past the boardwalk.”

For now, he’s managing to keep most of the water out of the basement with pumps, but too much water could change things.

“If the water rises too fast, I have all my freezers downstairs; I’m at risk of losing stock. It would be a major financial blow,” he said.

O’Connell’s restaurant is open, but he and others are losing business because the floodwater has cut off access from the boardwalk to a few of the restaurants and bars.

“This is our footpath right here. This is our foot traffic so it’s having an effect, for sure, financially and from people not knowing what’s going on,” he said.

“Some people completely avoid the area,” added Papachronis.

Now, all Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue’s waterfront business owners can do is wait and hope that the water starts receding again soon.