Saguenay, Que. marks 30 years since devastating floods wiped out hundreds of homes

It’s been 30 years since flash flooding in Saguenay, Que., killed 10 people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

It was a disaster on a scale never seen in Quebec and its impacts are still being felt to this day.

Close to 300 millimeters of rain fell on the region in just 36 hours. Water spilled over the top of the dam, sending a torrent of water, earth, and debris crashing towards residential neighbourhoods.

Roughly 16,000 residents were forced to flee their homes, many in the middle of the night. Before long, there was nothing to return to.

“The Grande-Baie sector no longer existed,” said Mikael Lalancette, who was just 10 years old when his family escaped the flood. They later learned the house had been swept away.

“My mother was really shocked,” he said. “It was the memories, the family nest. It was our family roots.”

Keeping memories alive

Now, 30 years later there is still evidence of the flood. A solitary house that survived the flood has been converted into a museum and looks over the town as a symbol of resilience.

But, as the event recedes into distant memory, the families of the victims are trying to keep their loved ones’ memories alive.

“All the distress I’d experienced over the past 30 years, I wanted to put it into words to understand where it came from, and to remember it at the same time,” said Jason Paquet-Garceau, who was five years old in 1996.

Paquet-Garceau’s older brother and sister, Mathieu and Andrea Paquet-Garceau, both died when a mudslide hit their family home.

“That night I not only lost my brother and sister, I also lost my belief in a stable world,” he wrote in his new book, Entre chaos et Lumiere, which chronicles the floods and his 30 years of heartache since.