Heavy rains in Quebec wash away roads, cause heavy flooding | CBC News

Streets flooded and waters overwhelmed several roads in Quebec as heavy rain and strong winds buffeted the province. 

The storm prompted Environment and Climate Change Canada to issue a rainfall warning, with forecasters predicting 30 to 50 millimetres of rain would fall by Monday afternoon. 

All that rain flowed into rivers that were already swollen from spring meltwater, overflowing the Rivière du Gouffre in Baie-St-Paul, whose water levels spike sharply on Monday. 

The river and its tributaries overflowed, washing out some of the area’s roads. Images on social media showed several motorhomes being carried away by the rushing river and smashing into bridges near the town. 

Baie-Saint-Paul declared a state of emergency and warned residents that the waters had cut access to several roads near the town. Town officials evacuated two daycares that were threatened by the floodwaters. People in need of shelter were asked to go to the town’s arena, located at 11 Forget St. 

Roads and towns in the Lanaudière region, northeast of Montreal, also flooded. Route 347 in Saint-Côme was blocked by flooding in several locations on Monday afternoon. 

Saint-Côme municipal officials issued a media release early Monday afternoon announcing a state of emergency. 

“Due to the heavy rains of the last few days, several roads are damaged and threaten to give way,” it said. “We ask for your utmost caution when making mandatory trips.”

The officials urged residents of the Domaine du Lac France to evacuate the area because a dam was in danger of breaching. 

A Facebook post on the municipality’s page asked residents for help filling sandbags at the municipal garage. 

The local recreation centre, located at 250 6e Avenue, was available for anyone who needed shelter. 

Nearby, in Entrelacs, another Lanaudière town, floodwaters filled parking lots and roads. The town said residents could go to the Groupe Populaire to warm up and get coffee and water.

Power outages

Meanwhile, thousands of Quebec households lost electricity Monday due to the rainfall and wind gusts.

As of 11:45 a.m. Monday, more than 70,000 customers in Quebec were without power. 

In terms of power failures, the hardest hit regions are Quebec City area (15,413), the Laurentians (10,633), the Montérégie (9,076), Lanaudière (2,531), Chaudière-Appalaches (3,246) and the Eastern Townships (3,969).

Cendrix Bouchard, a spokesperson for Hydro-Québec, said the outages were mainly caused by falling branches.

Hydro-Québec deployed more than 440 workers to restore power.

Strong winds in Quebec City downed trees and tossed material and structures, like tempos (temporary car shelters), into the air. 

Bill Noonan, a spokesperson for Quebec City’s fire department, said firefighters have responded to 22 incidents of dangerous items being carried by the wind and another 15 incidents involving electrical danger, mostly branches hitting wires. 

Though Monday’s outages are small in comparison to two other recent events that left hundreds of thousands of people without power, it is, nonetheless, the third time in four weeks that a significant number of customers are in the dark. 

On April 5, an ice storm sent tree limbs tumbling onto power lines, knocking out electricity to more than one million customers, some of whom remained without it for nearly a week. 

Last week, nearly 500,000 customers lost power due to a “loss of production” from the generating station in Churchill Falls, N.L., which led to automatic shutdowns on the network. Most of them regained power by day’s end. 

Gabrielle Leblanc, another Hydro-Québec spokesperson, said the power utility has been getting “really unlucky with the weather events.”

“We’re working hard,” she said. “We’re doing everything we can to make sure everyone has power.” 

The ice storm drew attention to the state of Hydro-Québec’s distribution network, which is aging, in need of repair and threatened by encroaching vegetation. 

The utility has said it is upping investments in maintenance and has a plan to improve the viability of its network.