Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Jean-François Boyer was awakened shortly after 4:30 a.m. Friday morning by someone pounding on his door urging him to look outside his third-storey apartment in Montreal's Saint-Michel neighbourhood. "I looked down from the balcony and saw that my car had water halfway up its doors," said Boyer. "I didn't know what to do." A major water main broke Friday morning, flooding streets in the neighbourhood and filling several basements and vehicles.
Julie Gagnon and Hugo Lajoie leaned on the barrier that separates them from their home in Edmundston, N.B. In front of them, a massive hole created by a landslide threatened to swallow up their shed and their house. Thursday's torrential rains forced them from almost all their belongings in the area of Verret Street. They have also been told their insurance does not cover this type of disaster. "I contacted our insurance company for a claim and they rejected it because these damages were not in my contract," Gagnon told Radio-Canada on Saturday while fighting back tears. "I called two or three times and there was nothing to be done. We pay for insurance and we have no help."
Roads were flooded and basements were soaked in towns across Saskatchewan on Monday. Terri Lang, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the Battlefords area was hit hardest. "They came in with a whopping 100 millimetres. And that was in about six or seven hours," Lang said. Other areas also saw heavy rain. Lang says Rosetown got about 46 mm, but based on models she believes the rainfall totals east of Rosetown could have been much higher.
Winnipeggers will deal with flooded basements and sewage in the rivers for decades as the city's sewer improvement plan crawls along at its current pace. The city has increased the amount of rainfall, snowmelt and sewage its systems can hold by one percentage point since 2013. But that's right on track, one city councillor said.
After a weekend of heavy rain, Manitobans have been busy cleaning up flooded basements and leaky roofs. That's meant tons of calls for service to local restoration companies. At Paul Davis Restoration in Winnipeg, general manager Ken Cruzat says they usually get four or five calls for service after a storm. But in the last two days, he says they've received 50 calls about water coming through everything from foundation cracks to windows.
