'We laugh. We cry. We work a lot,' say Pierrefonds neighbours living a déja vu
Temporary dikes are holding up on Pierrefonds' Lauzon Street — and exhausted flood veterans are, too
Christian Martinez stood on his front porch behind an imposing wall of sandbags surrounding his house on Tuesday.
Outside the wall, the water was almost waist-deep.
Inside, everything was dry, including Martinez's basement.
"As you can see, this is quite the frickin' wall," Martinez said.
"I got an email from Donald Trump this morning, looking for advice on building walls," he joked with his brother Eric.
The two, along with their neighbours on Lauzon Street, just west of the Cap-Saint-Jacques nature park in Pierrefonds, have been fighting a war with the rising water since last Thursday, and so far they're winning.
With the help of volunteers, they're moving sandbags by canoe from the dry end of the street to the houses at the waterlogged other end.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the temporary dikes were holding, and everyone's basement was dry.
Flashbacks to 2017
This is the second time in two years people on this street have been forced to hold back major floodwaters from the Lake of Two Mountains.
Most said the water was higher in 2017, but not by much.
"All the emotions from two years ago just came out, and we just cried," said homeowner Christiane Bergeron, recounting how she felt when she realized the flooding was going to be bad again this year.
Bergeron said every house on the street had a flooded basement in 2017. It took six months to renovate hers.
She said compensation offered by the government after the 2017 floods covered only a fraction of her losses. But she's lucky, she said: some of her neighbours are still waiting for compensation cheques from 2017, even as they sandbag their houses once more.
Bergeron said it's hard to find an insurance company that will cover flood damage for houses on this street.
She pointed out a couple of vacant lots, now covered in water.
She said the two homes that used to stand there were demolished after 2017. Bergeron said the owners accepted government buyout packages.
Premier Francois Legault said Monday his government would offer to buy people's homes in flood zones up to maximum cost of $200,000.
Bergeron said she's not interested.
"It's our house, our home. We put a lot of money in our place. So not for now. I cross my fingers," she said.
Lift house to save it
Martinez also said he has no plans to leave.
He said the 2017 flood damaged not only the basement of his house, but the main floor as well. It took a year and half to renovate.
"If the water floods this time, then we're stuck having to renovate the whole floor again," he said.
"Our goal is to save the main floor of the house, so that once the water goes down, we can lift the house and not have to ever worry about this again," he said.
Some of his neighbours lifted their houses several feet after the 2017 flood.
"If we're able to save the house, then we'll have money to lift it," he said.
More help than 2017
Despite the exhaustion and the anxiety, the mood on the street was mostly positive.
"With all the neighbours, we help each other. We laugh. We cry. We work a lot," Bergeron said.
"It's hard work, but me and my brother, we're all about challenges; we're all about teamwork; we're all about helping our friends out," Martinez said.
Both he and Bergeron said the city and the borough are more prepared this time than they were in 2017, and they've received more help from volunteers and strangers.
After the 2017 flood, Martinez helped organized a motocross charity event for people affected by floods.
"Because I did that event, I was connected with this flood group on Facebook that had 2000 or so members," he said.
"So when we started to deal with this, I just went back on that Facebook group, and I lit it up again," he said.
He said strangers showed up at the end of the street with pickup trucks full of sandbags and helped distribute them.
"We got a bunch of these people from that flood group," he said, "and it was insane — the internet just saved us."
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