‘Huge’ water main break causes flooding chaos in parts of downtown Montreal

The streets surrounding the Jacques Cartier bridge in downtown Montreal’s east end were flooded on Friday morning after a major water main break occurred in the area.
The water main break forced the evacuation of homes and offices in the area while also leading to a boil water advisory for about 150,000 people who reside in the east end of the city.
Montreal is still working to determine the cause of the break but officials said the pipe that burst was installed back in 1985 and is about 84 inches around.
Mayor Valérie Plante said that the water main break “was under control” after many who lived in the area were woken by firefighters who were urging them to get out of their homes because of  the “geyser.”
Area resident Lyman Zhu told The Canadian Press he woke up to what sounded like “heavy rain” and when he looked out his window saw a “wall of water” that was about 10 metres high and the width of the street. “It was insane,” he said.
Maxime Carignan Chagnon said the “giant wall of water” gushed for about two hours. The rushing water was “very, very strong,” he said, splashing as it crashed against lampposts and trees. “It was truly impressive.”
He said about two feet of water collected in his basement, but “I heard some people had much, much more.”
A number of streets in the area were closed due to the flooding, as was the bridge itself, which is a major thoroughfare into the city.
Initially, the city said they did not expect to issue a boil water advisory but one was issued at around noon for a portion of the city below Sherbrooke Street in the boroughs of Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Rivière-des-Prairies — Pointe-aux-Trembles, and the on-island suburb of Montréal-Est. Residents there are advised to boil water for a minute before drinking.
“The good news is that everything is under control,” Plante said. “We will have to repair the pipe, but we no longer have the same quantity of water (on the street) that we had this morning … and as a precaution, there will be a preventive boil-water advisory.”
Chantal Morissette, who is in charge of water services for the city, said in a morning news conference that crews had already begun to shut down the pipe although it would take several hours for that to occur.
“It’s a huge one,” she told reporters, while explaining that there were four valves that needed to be closed to shut off the water and that it would take an hour or two to close each valve.
“We have to take that time to plan carefully to make sure there won’t be any other break at the same time,” she noted.
The leak, which was in a pipe which provided drinking water, began a little before 6 a.m. at the intersection of René-Lévesque Boulevard and De Lorimier Avenue and was continuing steadily for quite some time.
Firefighters were on the scene quickly and soon worked to clear the area, according to Martin Guilbault Division Chief Montreal Fire Service.
“The first thing we did this morning was evacuate all of the buildings that were involved in the flood,” he said.
Guilbault said that firefighters were going door-to-door to see how many buildings had been effected by the event.
“After everything is under control, we are going to have to go door to door to make sure that people can’t go back in their homes and everything is safe,” he explained.
More than 100 people were evacuated as a result of the water main break. Plante said they would be housed in emergency shelters.
City officials said the Red Cross was meeting with affected residents and offering resources to those who couldn’t immediately return home.
Quebec’s hydro utility cut power to the affected area as a precaution at the behest of emergency services, leaving about 14,000 residences without electricity.
Premier François Legault confirmed Friday the province would enlarge its financial assistance program for disaster victims to include people whose homes were flooded when their sewers backed up during the storm, rather than limiting eligibility to damage caused by overland flooding.
Public Security Minister François Bonnardel told reporters in Montreal that the situation was improving after last week’s flooding, but 20 roads still had to be repaired and 36 people remained evacuated from their homes.
— with files from The Canadian Press