State of emergency declared in Quebec town due to flood risk, more towns evacuating

Floods force Sherbrooke residents from homes Hundreds of people have been forced from their homes in Sherbrooke because of a risk of flooding.

A town near Quebec City declared a state of local emergency and other communities ordered preventive evacuations on Tuesday as torrential rain caused rivers across southern Quebec to burst free of their banks.

By Tuesday, between 500 and 600 people were forced from their homes in Ste-Brigitte-de-Laval, where the mayor declared a state of emergency for the next 48 hours.

Marc Proulx, the town's general director, said about 250 homes were "flooded or near-flooded" after the Montmorency River rose rapidly and inundated roads and communities. He said some roads were also flooded, making it impossible for workers to check the extent of the damage.

He warned that government data suggested the river would continue rising until the end of the day. "After that, we're going to reach the highest point, and after that, the situation is going to turn on the good side," he said.

Environment Canada has issued rainfall or thunderstorm warnings for several parts of the province and has warned of possible flooding in low-lying areas.

The province's flood map showed medium-level flooding at one monitoring station near the village of St-Urbain in the Charlevoix region as of Tuesday afternoon, and minor flooding at eight other stations, including several in the Estrie region east of Montreal.

Officials in Sherbrooke, 150 kilometres east of Montreal, announced they had ordered preventive evacuations for nearly 300 people living in 144 residences in neighbourhoods close to the St-François River and warned that the number could rise.

Fire Chief Stéphane Simoneau said the river level rose to 21 feet from eight feet in less than four hours. "It's an extraordinary quantity of water," Simoneau told a news conference. However, he said the flooding had not yet reached any homes.

Évelyne Beaudin, the city's mayor, said this amount of flooding in the middle of summer is "unprecedented." Both she and Proulx blamed the situation on climate change, which they said was causing weather patterns to become more unpredictable.

"Today we’re finding ourselves in a situation where there are floods in the middle of July, so for sure it makes us question how we manage emergency situations," Beaudin said.

Cookshire-Eaton, just east of Sherbrooke, also announced it was evacuating several streets near the Eaton River, which spilled its banks overnight. Eastman, to the west of Sherbrooke, said it was asking some residents to evacuate, adding that some roads had become risky or impassable.

Environment Canada said that between 15 and 25 millimetres was expected to fall in the Sherbrooke region by noon, which, when combined with precipitation from previous days, could trigger flash floods, landslides and water accumulation on roads. The department issued storm warnings for the Laurentians and Lanaudière regions north of Montreal and said the conditions were right for heavy winds and hail.

The Lac-Saint-Jean region could receive between 50 and 70 millimetres of rain by the end of the day and Côte-Nord region could get around 50, the federal department said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11, 2023.

— With files from Stéphane Blais and Jean-Philippe Denoncourt