The life of rivers | When the Chaudière River digs a hole

On the grassy field, Louise Laflamme hesitates a little. Was her house to the left of the tree? To the right? “Wait a minute, wait a minute… Yes, yes. That’s it.” Suddenly, she seems to see it clearly.

Five years after the Chaudière River flood that led to the almost complete demolition of the heart of Sainte-Marie, in Beauce, the former disaster victim is not the only one to be disconcerted. On the large expanses of lawn, there is no trace of the old buildings. The cement border slopes down in places, indicating the location of the entrances.

This is because after the flood, the state offered to buy back any residence (and some businesses) that had been severely damaged, with a view to demolishing them. After years of compensating victims of the Chaudière River, Quebec and the municipality preferred to put an end to the problem by wiping the slate clean. The vast majority of affected victims accepted. Maximum cheque: $200,000 plus the value of the land.

“I was there, I was tired,” explains Louise Laflamme, who built her home with her partner in 1981. “We had experienced at least eight floods. [Elles] were becoming more and more demanding. What we did at 20, we no longer do at 60.”

“It was a disaster”

Gaétan Vachon, the mayor of Sainte-Marie, grew up “with his feet in the water”, in the heart of Sainte-Marie. He too has experienced the vagaries of the Chaudière River, which frequently overflows its banks in the spring and sometimes in the fall.

“When I was young, there was usually water one evening and one night. The next morning the water had receded, we cleaned up. I wouldn’t say it was a party, but people helped each other, they had a little beer,” he recalls in his office at the city hall. On the walls: aerial photos of the old city center, “the only memories we will have left.”

In 2019, the joyful chores of the 1970s were no longer in fashion.

“It was a disaster,” said the elected official, who was already in office at the time. “It wasn’t fun anymore, it wasn’t a party anymore.”

The water rose very quickly during the night of April 14-15 and reached a much higher level than usual. Result: a city center transformed into a lake, hundreds of evacuees and real doubt about the viability of this sector.

“It was a total and complete disaster,” continues Marie-Claude Fortin, who lived on Rue Principale. The water “rose catastrophically and unpredictably.” Like her neighbours, she had pumps to remove water from her basement. But a power outage caused by a broken electrical pole knocked out all that equipment.

After nine days without being allowed to return to see his house and cats, Mr.^me Fortin eventually decided to defy authorities and go for it… by swimming. “I realized afterwards that I could have been picked up” by submerged objects, she says in retrospect.

Like most of his neighbors, M^me Fortin accepted the government check. Recently, she returned with her teenage sons to retake the photos in the same position as on their first day of school. Without the house.

Protect the Jos Louis

Others had no choice but to hang on. In the city, the few houses that remained standing were mostly businesses or rental homes, for which the state’s buyout program only partially applied. Others were spared from the flood because of the topography. A slope imperceptible to the naked eye can sometimes make the difference between dry feet and wet feet.

Vachon, the maker of the popular cupcakes of the same name, has made a conscious choice to stay put. Not only in Sainte-Marie, but in its historic facilities on the banks of the Chaudière River, which were “completely flooded” in 2019. The company – which belongs to a Mexican conglomerate – invested $100 million there in the wake of the flood, including $10 million to build an impressive steel wall.

“An economic analysis was done and our leaders determined that it was worth investing money to keep the building, preserve the heritage and continue working on the site,” explained Valérie Huot, plant manager, while walking along the wall.

The visible part is only the tip of the iceberg: it goes about ten meters deep into the ground.

With engineer Jason Boulet, M^me Huot walks along the impressive wall. They pass the gates ready to be closed in an emergency and the huge pumping systems ready to activate in the event of infiltration. “It’s based on a flood level that we’ll see every 200 years,” explains the engineer. The Jos Louis and the Ah Caramel! should stay dry.

“I have turned the page”

The heart of Sainte-Marie was made up of very modest workers’ houses and century-old heritage houses. “It wasn’t the rich people who lived on the banks of the river. People were outside, it wasn’t everyone in their own house,” recalls Marie-Claude Fortin. “There was a neighbourhood life.”

Gaétan Vachon spent his childhood there, but has no problem accepting the idea of ​​being the mayor who will have written the last chapter of this district.

“I’m calm,” he says in his office at the town hall, which is itself scheduled to move in the medium term. “I’m not saying it doesn’t affect me, but I’ve turned the page. People have suffered so much.”

“The people who accused us of destroying our heritage, I would have liked them to come and take a dip during the flood, to see the damage. These are people who are not aware, who do not know,” he continues. “Water is powerful, water is strong, water pushes.” Powerful enough, strong enough to push a city center far from the shore.