black garbage bags are piled high. torn-out drywall and sewage-soaked carpets are stacked alongside musty couches. destroyed boxes of precious keepsakes that were stashed away when basements flooded speak to the heartbreak the storm left in its wake.
across the island of montreal and in neighbouring regions, the scenes are the same. and so are the feelings of sadness, powerlessness and frustration among those who were affected and continue to deal with the fallout.
from the borough of st-laurent to st-lin-laurentides , from pincourt to dollard-des-ormeaux, climate change has hit home in ways that are both predictable and personal.
the Île-aux-tourtes bridge had to be shut down because the rainfall overflowed in the construction zone. highway 13 remains closed in dorval near trudeau airport.
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montreal is creating sponge parks and streets to absorb runoff from heavy rainfall that can overflow storm drains, but it can’t build them fast enough. yet there is still pressure across quebec to build developments on wetlands, woods, fields and other natural spaces, including golf courses, that already serve this critical purpose.
this time, there was flooding in 55 towns and cities . how many will it be next time? because there will be a next time. it’s not if, but when. what was once the storm of the century, decade or year is now more of a seasonal event.
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just this summer, we’ve toggled between fire and flood depending on the region of canada. so far in quebec, 2024 has been a year of tornadoes and power outages . rewind to last year, and northern quebec was sending smoke plumes from wildfires to places as far away as new york city. we barely recover from one emergency before another is upon us.
insurable losses from climate change exceeded $3 billion in canada for the second year in a row in 2023, according to the insurance bureau of canada.
since this isn’t the first time municipal sewers have backed up into homes, insurers are questioning whether they’ll pay out claims in some cases unless the city fixes the issues. but repairing water mains is an expensive, disruptive and time-consuming job. municipalities can barely keep up with maintenance. and storms like the one that pummelled montreal on friday further weaken strained infrastructure, causing new messes after the fact.
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cities don’t have the resources to pay for all this alone. yet quebec is reluctant to foot the bill, only handing over a fraction of the more than $2 billion a year municipalities in the province requested in 2022 to adapt to the climate crisis .