It’s time to clean up the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, the day after the passage of the post-tropical cyclone which whipped the archipelago with its winds of 100 to 132 km / h and its waves six to eight meters high .
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The good news is that the brand new protection structure for Route 199, which extends over a distance of 1.5 km in the Pointe-aux-Loups sector, held up. The Ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ) has invested more than $20 million there to build an artificial dune after the bank receded 15 meters in the wake of a series of violent storms, including Hurricane Dorian, which occurred in 2019. Made up of riprap covered with sand refill, the structure has been planted with 150,000 marram grass plants over the past year to keep the sediment in place.
“Over the past few years, the ministry has made rockfill and sand refills in various places in the archipelago and following the weekend storm, we are happy to see that the structures have remained intact, said MTQ spokesman Jean-Philippe Langlais. They had the desired effect by contributing greatly to the protection of Route 199, in Pointe-aux-Loups as elsewhere on the archipelago.”
HELENE FAUTEUX/QMI AGENCY
The MTQ must nevertheless carry out certain repairs, such as the replacement of guardrails and the reduction of bumps which have formed on the Detroit bridge, which spans the lagoon of Havre-aux-Maisons. “There are also portions of the shoulder that have been damaged by the strong waves, added Mr. Langlais. Actions will be taken to fix them quickly over the next few days. We invite users to slow down in these areas.
HELENE FAUTEUX/QMI AGENCY
More sadly, in several dune environments of the territory, the floods by the waves and the post-tropical cyclone rainstorms got the better of chalets, which were completely destroyed. This is the case of a small house, located on the Pointe de Havre-aux-Maisons, between sea and lagoon. On the other side of the road, an innkeeper, Marc-David Andrade, had to evacuate five tourists at the height of the storm yesterday midday. Today, he is busy restoring his land while two pumps dry out his basement. “Moral is good,” he said. It is a beautiful sun. The house is unharmed. This is the main.”
A little further, near the marina of Havre-aux-Maisons, the fisherman and chairman of the board of directors of the processing company Fruits de Mer Madeleine, Eudore Aucoin, is taking part in the work aimed at clearing the road from the quays. from his breeding ground. Carried away by the waves, the latter found themselves 200 feet from their place of origin. “It was the sea that brought it all here and, even inside the fish market, there is water that entered, he said. We imagined that it was going to be worse, because the water was very high, here on the Point, yesterday morning. We thought it was going to be a disaster. But either way, we’ll get through this.”
For his part, Jacques Thériault is pleased that his pleasure boat, which was moved about ten feet from its storage base, did not suffer significant damage. “It was because the tide rose above the waterline and it floated,” he said. The wind that veered to the northwest pushed him there. Afterwards, when the tide went down, he lay down there, very slowly. There is nothing broken.”
For nearly 40 years, Mr. Thériault has put his boat in the same place, in the dry, for the winter. However, because he fears new violent storms in the future, he stresses that he will choose a new location, more sheltered. “We had beautiful heat this summer and, with the energy accumulated by the sea, we will pay for it!”, He concluded.