Nearly a year after the tragedy which took away her father during the floods in Saint-Urbain, “the anger is less present”, but there are still questions, confides the daughter of one of the victims.
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“The anger is less present. I learned to live with the fact that my father died and for a good cause, basically,” sighs Marylou Lavoie, the daughter of Régis Lavoie, in an interview with The newspaper.
“But it’s certain that I still have resentment, I still have a misunderstanding in […] the decisions that were made at that time, [sur] who decided to send them, so to speak, to the slaughterhouse,” she continues.
The unveiling of the CNESST investigation report, which partly points the finger at the municipality for the lack of planning and training, is good news according to her.
The 23-year-old wants us to learn lessons from the tragedy and that the death of her dad, a man “with a big heart who was ready to help everyone and who gave his life to help people”, helps save lives.
“A balm”
“It puts a balm on my heart because I say to myself that perhaps no more families will experience a tragedy like us [on] lived,” she emphasizes.
Her father having died only a month before she gave birth to her son, he was never able to meet his very first grandchild.
This one also bears the name Malik Régis in honor of his grandfather.
“Every time I look into my son’s eyes, I see my father because he looks just like him. It’s as if life had sent us comfort,” says Marylou Lavoie, speaking of a rare source of happiness in what has been a trying period.
Death as a hero
In his eyes, Régis Lavoie and his colleague Christopher Lavoie died as heroes, who came to the aid of citizens surrounded by water before being swept away by the current.
If she persists in believing that the tragedy should never have happened and was avoidable, the young mother hopes to have more answers during the coroner’s public inquest which will begin in mid-April.
Furthermore, she continues to wonder why a helicopter was not sent sooner to rescue the residents in difficulty, since that is how they were ultimately evacuated.
As for the possibility of legal action, she explains that the family does not rule it out, but that a decision is far from being made on this subject.
“We are not here to find someone guilty. All I want is for it to stop happening,” she explains.