It is being described as one of the biggest natural disasters in Canadian history.
After an unprecedented 11 inches of rain fell in parts of Quebec, mass floods swept the Saguenay and Lower North Shore areas, leaving 10 dead, over 10,000 evacuated, severe damage in 12 to 15 towns and up to $250 million in losses.
But was this just an act of God? Or is there a human factor behind the tragedy?
Residents and environmentalists in the affected regions say dams, clearcutting and global warming were factors in the floods.
One of the towns hardest hit was Chicoutimi, where over 5,000 had to be evacuated. Mayor Ulrich Blackburn has called for an inquiry into whether half a dozen dams on local rivers were mismanaged during the heavy rains.
“In the 135 years of Chicoutimi’s history, this is the worst flooding we’ve ever seen,” he said. “And before we didn’t have the dams. We just had the river.”
Quebec Environment officials are denying that the dams were mismanaged. But John Burke, of Quebec’s civil-protection department, told The Nation that the most serious floods started when the Lake Kenogami reservoir overflowed on its sides. The reservoir is in downtown Chicoutimi.
“That’s where it started. The level of the water was too high. There was 150 to 200 millimetres of rain and then the whole cabane come loose,” he said.
A wall of water was unleashed that nearly wiped the town of Laterriere just downstream right off the map. All 5,000 residents had to be evacuated and all 860 homes were damaged, half completely destroyed.
“We’re lucky in a sense it was only 10 deaths with what has happened,” said Burke.
“Eighty per cent of the damage was because of the flooding at the side of the reservoir,” said Jean Paradis, an environmentalist in Alma, Quebec.
Paradis is head of the 12,800-member Coalition to Save the Ashuapmushuan River, which is the only large river in the region not yet dammed. “It’s certain the rivers that were flooded were affected by the dams.”
Jean Désy, a geography professor at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, says 30 years of intensive clearcutting in the area could be another factor behind the floods.
Forests act like sponges absorbing water, said Désy, with one mature tree absorbing 1,400 litres of water per day from the soil. “If you have big clearcuts like this, nothing is left to absorb the water.”
Heavy forestry machinery also compacts the soil, causing rainwater to slide along the top instead of getting absorbed, said Henri Jacob, an environmentalist in Val d’Or.
Jacob said the floods in Quebec are a sign of things to come. As global warming increases due to pollution, freak natural disasters are happening everywhere, he said, like the floods two years ago on the Mississippi River and twister epidemics around the world. “Hot air currents will crash together with cold air with a lot more force. All the scientists’ models are saying the same thing. This time it happened there but the next time it could be in Abitibi.”
Paradis agreed. “Events like this make me think the planet is in the process of
restructuring itself. It’s a sign we have to do things differently in
the whole territory.”
