Elected officials in one Montreal West Island borough are accusing City of Montreal administration of doing too little to prepare for the possibility of spring floods.
They say the lack of investment in flood mitigation measures in Pierrefonds-Roxboro means the community is constantly reacting to emergency situations since there is so little prevention in place.
“At this time we start asking questions, we start walking over towards the river,” explained resident Rene Leblanc said in front of his house on des Maçon, not far from the Rivière-des-Prairies.
He and other residents are nervous about flooding, since hundreds of families in the borough had their homes flooded in 2017 and again in 2019.
That’s why borough officials are pushing the city to establish permanent flood prevention measures.
“We need to absolutely look at this way ahead of time and this is why I mentioned that there has to be a plan,” said borough mayor Dimitrios (Jim) Beis.
He intends to table a motion at the next Montreal city council meeting March 21 asking for three things.
The first request is that the city sets up a flood prevention fund.
“That we can go and get the funding that we need to buy some of this preventative material that we have done internally,” he told reporters.
For example, he pointed out, the borough has rented six water pumps to have on standby.
Beis also wants the city to have other flood prevention equipment as needed, and to also put permanent mitigation measures in place, such as dikes. He claimed that he’s been asking for since 2017.
Montreal city councillor and member of the city’s executive committee Alain Vaillancourt told Global News that he does plan to meet with the borough mayor.
“We have a plan,” he said. “We’ve been working actively on that all year so we are ready.”
Leblanc pointed out that not knowing if there’ll be another flood has taken a toll.
“The stress of having to relive that, I mean, some people have sold their home,” he noted. “We can’t take that stress anymore.”
He hopes the city does more to protect the area.