PIERREFONDS, Canada — Four people are reported to be missing after some of the worst flooding in decades in parts of Canada.
In the eastern province of Quebec, police are searching for a man and a toddler who were swept away after their car swerved into a river.
In British Columbia (BC), on the other side of the country, rescue crews are searching for two men, including a fire chief who went missing late Friday.
Meanwhile, Canada mobilized its army to help thousands of flood victims try to hold backwaters and save their homes on Monday after the worst flood in half a century struck, but authorities were optimistic that rising water levels would soon crest.
Several rivers and lakes have overflowed their banks in Quebec province, between Gatineau in the Canadian capital region and Montreal 200 km downstream.
The ground is saturated and unable to absorb any more water.
But recent heavy rains have started to subside and “as of Wednesday, we expect to see the situation begin to improve,” Quebec Public Safety Minister Martin Coiteux announced.
Some 2,500 homes in Quebec and more than 300 in Ontario have been flooded, and at least 1,500 people have been ordered to evacuate — most of them in the Canadian capital region.
In Pierrefonds, one of the hardest-hit regions near Montreal, Johanne Aubin spent the morning pumping water from her basement using a pump from her backyard swimming pool.
The flooding took her and most others here by surprise, and she barely had time to erect a small sandbag wall around her property.
After days of fighting an exhausting battle to hold back the waters, often in vain, despair has started to set in.
Most of the streets here are flooded, forcing locals to travel by canoe or other small boat.
Resident David Swidzinsky has been ferrying neighbors to safety, or back to their homes to collect precious belongings that had been missed in the rush to get out when a state of emergency was declared.
People “broke out in tears (seeing the devastation) when I brought them home to fetch their bags,” he said.
A few streets over, a dozen soldiers tirelessly filled sandbags. Across eastern Canada, hundreds of thousands of sandbags have been used and Ottawa has asked suppliers for up to four million more, said officials.
Pierrefonds resident John Parker spent his day hauling wet furniture and personal belongings to the curb, as a pump and hose sputtered water from his flooded basement over another wall of sandbags.
“It just kind of tires you out. You move around, get one window fixed and the next window gets full of water,” he said. “It’s surrounded the whole house now, and it’s coming into the garage.
“It will get better, because it can’t get any worse,” he said.
The Canadian army has deployed 1,650 troops to help stem the flooding, reinforcing dikes, protecting critical infrastructure including water treatment facilities and bridges. Military helicopters and boats also are on standby. — Agencies
