La Presse in the Magdalen Islands | The Madelinots discover the extent of the damage

(Îles-de-la-Madeleine) “We repress our tears. »

Caroline Touzin
The Press

Photos: Olivier Jean
The Press

Colette Thériault and her sister Louise embrace with emotion for long minutes. As if to give themselves courage in front of the extent of the devastation before their eyes.

The two women try not to cry, but it’s a waste of time.

On the way from The Press on Sunday, they had just discovered that Fiona had robbed them of a large part of “their corner of paradise” in addition to damaging their properties.

The sun has returned to the Magdalen Islands, but the mines are long in the coastal sectors most affected by the post-tropical storm.

The Madeliniennes are “neighbors of the chalet”. Their second homes are located by the sea, on the Dune du Sud, in the Havre-aux-Maisons area. Louise’s was blown by the strong winds. She is “total loss”, she laments. Colette’s was damaged.

“It’s the most beautiful place in the world, here. Write it down,” insisted the two victims to the representative of The Press as they work with friends to assess the extent of the damage.

An idyllic place threatened by the increasingly strong storms that hit the archipelago of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They are well aware of it.

The dune has been “eaten” by at least 30 feet by the storm, note the Thériault sisters, despite the many protective ramparts installed here in recent years by environmental groups.

Bales of alder, lobster pots and fences (fences formed by assembling wooden slats) had been put in place to retain the sand and thus limit erosion.

All gone today. Carried away by the tide or blown by the winds? Nobody knows.

Colette Thériault insists that she is “lucid” about climate threats. For the past three years, she has been stepping up the steps to move her chalet away from the sea. she.

Their brother Michel arrives on a mountain bike to lend a hand while Colette tells us about his setbacks. It is that his main property – located in the sector of La Martinique – also suffered significant damage.

“My two houses are affected, adds the woman, shaken. I’m waiting for Mr. Legault to show him. It is better to keep his promise to help us. The outgoing Prime Minister is expected in the Islands on Monday; a visit planned before the storm.

Michel has a surprise to comfort the two victims. He is coming back from clam fishing. He has a crate full of them hanging from the back of the vehicle. “The high tide throws them on the beach. We harvest them at low tide,” he explains. Early Sunday morning, this retired lobster fisherman harvested three cases.

The sympathetic pensioner manages to bring a smile to the faces of his shaken sisters.

“We will get up”

About forty kilometers away, at the southern end of the archipelago, in Havre-Aubert, the mines are also discomfited.

“Our season is ending abruptly,” says Nathalie Bénard, who owns Café de la Grave with her husband and daughter.

The popular tourist site café was flooded like several other businesses in this coastal area. His kitchen hood was torn off, so it was impossible to reopen the kitchen.

The fridge was full. “We will have to try to sell its content to limit the losses”, suggests M^me Bénard, who refuses to be defeated.

“We’re going to get up,” she adds to encourage her daughter and her husband, who are busy cleaning the place.

“At least it’s just material,” adds his daughter Marie-Claude Vigneault, with tears in her eyes. Here, everyone was wondering if the rockfill work recently carried out at a cost of more than seven million dollars to protect the banks and limit coastal flooding was going to be effective.

The sea passed over the beach recharge, but obviously this slowed down the violence of the waves, note the owners of the place. Nevertheless, the shock is brutal, confides M^me Vigneault.

Their neighbor owner of a chocolate factory also had a very bad surprise: her terrace was washed away by water. “We would have done well without it,” says Linda Lebel, who bought her business in the midst of a pandemic and who is not insured against flooding since she is in a flood zone.

“At least the shop is still standing,” says the resilient shopkeeper. M^me Lebel made coffee for all his neighbors when passing The Press. His phone is not ringing. His friends hear from him and offer to come by to help him clean up the mess.

“That’s the Islands, everyone helps each other,” says the generous chocolate maker.

At the end of Route 199 in Havre-Aubert, many heterogeneous objects litter the roadway. An old snowmobile here. A car with the trunk open there. A house was completely destroyed by the sea. At the dock, a sailboat was overturned.

The damage is everywhere.

“We were lucky. It could have been more serious, ”says Yvon Cormier, a retiree who came to see if his boat had been spared. “At the marina on Saturday, the sea was six feet higher than usual,” he said. It made a whole mess. »

Like most Madelinots encountered the day after the storm, Mr. Cormier was relieved to see that the damage amounted to material losses. But, at the same time, worried about the future of his archipelago: “The storms are getting worse and worse. At some point, there’s one that’s going to be too big to resist. This time his boat was spared.

A couple from Havre-Aubert experienced a brutal awakening in the night from Friday to Saturday. The roof of his mobile home flew off and landed on the neighbor’s lot across the street, located on the other side of the 199. blow (explosion)”, describes Denis Cormier, still in shock. The electric pole in front of his house broke. Water seeped into his residence.

On the way from The Press, his spouse, Diane Couillard, was climbing a ladder to see the extent of the devastation. “Mother Nature, you have no control over this,” she concludes, looking resigned.