This story has been updated.
Residents in Montreal’s western Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood are calling out the City of Montreal for abandoning them after hundreds of homes were flooded three weeks ago during torrential downpours.
Andrew Asfour just had power restored to his salon on Côte-Saint-Luc Road a day ago.
This after water entered the basement of the building housing his business destroying washers, dryers and other items. He says his salon was shut down for 17 days.
“For us it was stressful because it was a new situation seeing that much water come in so fast,” he told Global News, saying he lost over $30,000.
City officials have blamed the flooding in the city on a month’s worth of rain that fell within two hours on July 13th. Residents in NDG say their situation is different from other areas that flooded and blame the city for inadequate infrastructure.
“We’ve had flooding, after flooding, after flooding,” complained Morris Weiss. “We haven’t had a basement for the last 20 years.”
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Long-time residents say the July 13th flood was the ninth, pointing out that water rose in 600 homes in a 12-block radius this time. According to them, no matter what measures they take to protect their homes the water still rises.
Now they want the city to take responsibility.
“Tell us what happened,” stressed Ilana Grostern. “Tell us why our homes got flooded, tell us why the sewer in this area for the last 73 years has not been dealt with, has not been expanded has not been upgraded.”
Opposition officials point out that the recent flooding in that area of NDG is even making another city crisis worse — that of housing. Some renters were forced out because of the rising water.
“Many residents in the Loyola district that are tenants have no place to go and no place to find affordable housing right now,” opposition city councillor Stéphanie Valenzuela pointed out.
She acknowledges that her party, Ensemble Montréal, also failed to fix the problem when they were in power, but insists the Plante administration has a responsibility to act now.
Residents are preparing to file a class action lawsuit against Montreal. City officials initially refused to comment because the issue may go before the courts.
But in a further statement to Global News Thursday, the city says that they will carry out an analysis of the sector and the state of the sewer network and whether or not there has been recurrent flooding.
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