‘Smoke and mirrors’: Quebec residents feel abandoned after August flooding

MONTREAL — The Quebec government has made payments in less than 10 per cent of the nearly 10,000 claims it has received since the remnants of Hurricane Debby hit the province in August, causing severe flooding and damage.

In Montreal, which received a record-breaking 150 millimetres of rain during the storm, the government has paid out just nine of the 1,900 claims it has received, despite an early suggestion from Premier François Legault that he would expand access to financial aid for flood victims.

Though some files are still open, many residents who suffered tens of thousands of dollars in damage are left feeling abandoned by municipal and provincial officials who gave them reason to hope help was coming — only to later make it clear they were on their own.

“The government’s promise to expand aid was all smoke and mirrors,” said Isabelle Leblanc, a suburban Montreal resident whose basement flooded, causing $45,000 in damage. “They were just playing with words.”

The storm walloped southern Quebec on Aug. 9 and 10, washing out roads, leaving half a million households without power and flooding thousands of homes. Basements in many areas filled up with several feet of wastewater after sewers were overwhelmed, destroying floors, walls and furniture.

In September, the Insurance Bureau of Canada calculated the storm was the costliest severe weather event in Quebec’s history, surpassing the 1998 ice storm. Initial estimates suggested the remnants of Hurricane Debby caused nearly $2.5 billion in insured damage.

After the storm, Legault suggested his government would temporarily expand a provincial assistance program for disaster victims. The program previously compensated homeowners only for water damage caused by overflowing lakes and rivers, but Legault said it could be extended to include sewer backups. Private insurance typically covers sewer backups, but many people suffered more damage than their insurance would cover.

“Why was there a sewer backup? It’s because there was a flood,” Legault said during a visit to a hard-hit community a week after the storm. “So at a certain point you have to use common sense.”

The news made waves, and several municipalities mentioned it to their residents. “The Quebec government has adapted its assistance program for this event, which we hope will compensate many victims,” the mayor of one Montreal suburb told homeowners in a municipal magazine.

But in the following weeks, it became clear the rules of the program had not actually changed. The province’s Public Security Department says it has taken a flexible approach to assessing claims from the August storm, and that sewer backups caused by the overflow of a nearby waterway may be eligible. Homeowners who don’t live near water, however, are out of luck.

Still, the program website encourages people who are unsure of their eligibility to submit claims. Four months after the storm, a total of 10,076 claims have been received. Of those, Quebec has made payments in 720 files — about seven per cent — mostly in Mauricie and Lanaudière, two adjacent regions northeast of Montreal.

In Laval, a city north of Montreal that was hard-hit by the torrential rain, the province has made payments in 21 claims out of more than 2,100. In the region that includes Montreal’s South Shore, 39 claims out of more than 1,700 have been paid out. In total, the Quebec government has reimbursed residents about $24 million.

A spokesperson for the Public Security Department said the numbers are preliminary and many files are still open, pending supporting documents from the applicants. Homeowners also have a year to file a claim. And the number of paid claims has increased in recent weeks, up from 580 in mid-November.

But many residents have been summarily refused. Leblanc received a letter in mid-October telling her she was ineligible because the flood in her basement in Terrebonne was caused by a sewer backup, which should be covered by private insurance. Her insurance was capped at $20,000, covering less than half her losses.

Janice Donnelly, a resident of the Montreal suburb of Dorval, said she also suffered $45,000 in damage. She spent hours putting all the paperwork together to submit a claim to the province, only to be told the program wasn’t for her.

Donnelly, 70, said she’s had to dip into her retirement funds to pay for the repairs. “I just have to die earlier,” she joked.

Other flood victims simply didn’t bother submitting claims to the province once they realized the rules hadn’t changed. Sara Beaudet, a Laval resident, said an employee at her provincial legislator’s office told her after the storm that the disaster program was being expanded and she might be eligible. When she spoke to him again a short time later, he told her it was no longer the case.

Many homeowners also submitted claims to their municipal governments, with similar results. Cynthia Czaharyn, a resident of another Montreal suburb, recently received a letter from her town. “These rains constitute an unexpected, unforeseeable … event beyond the control of the town and are thus considered a force majeure (Act of God) event,” it reads. “As such, the town is not liable for any damages you may have sustained.”

The City of Montreal says it received more than 4,600 claims after the August storm, but it has not paid out any compensation. “The intensity of the rain on Aug. 9 was exceptional and far exceeded the design criteria for sewer networks,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “No network is designed to capture such quantities of rain in a short time.”

In an economic update published last month, Quebec estimated that the damage caused by Debby will cost the government $250 million, including $100 million for individuals and businesses through the disaster financial assistance program.

Nicolas Milot, interim director of ecological transition at the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, which represents 82 municipalities in the Montreal region, said the provincial program should be expanded to include sewer backups caused by “urban run-off.”

As it stands, however, many residents feel they’ve been had. Vanessa Lalonde, who lives in a suburb west of Montreal, discovered after the storm that her insurance didn’t cover sewer backups at all. Then her partner received a phone call telling him they wouldn’t get provincial aid.

Her children, whose bedroom is in the basement, slept in the living room for three months while she and her partner worked on the repairs, bit by bit.

“If (the government) hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have been outraged,” she said. “But it’s that they promised help that never came.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 16, 2024.

Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press