Ottawa and Montreal are on alert as downpours are forecast. Eastern Ontario and western Quebec along the Ottawa River as well as other parts of those provinces have been particularly hit hard by rising waters caused by rain and rapid snow melt. At a Friday morning news briefing, Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the military is ready to deploy when needed, with more than 1,700 troops to be used in Quebec and Ontario and New Brunswick, one of the country's maritime provinces.
It 'just rips your heart out'
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was touring Ottawa on Friday, with Canadian media quoting him pointing to climate change as a reason why eastern Ontario is facing heavy flooding for the second time in three years.It "just rips your heart out," Ford said of residents' plight, according to The Canadian Press.Goodale also touched on climate change in his press briefing, saying, "These wild cycles from storms and floods to droughts and wildfires — that is a very serious national problem; it is a public safety problem, and we all have to work conscientiously together. "I think we all have to learn the lessons of climate change. The impacts here are powerful and dangerous and damaging, and this is one of the most obvious manifestations of a changing climate. (We have) more unstable weather conditions where you can get precipitation that dumps about a year's worth of moisture in a day or two, and then it all floods and causes enormous damage to private property as well as public infrastructure as well as the economy."
On emergency footing
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has declared a state of emergency in response to flooding along the Ottawa River and has asked Ontario's provincial government for help in Canada's capital city. Volunteers are helping homeowners along the river and filling sandbags..The city of Ottawa saidthe Ottawa River and tributaries are expected to continue rising over the next several days. Environment Canada, the country's environmental agency, has issued a special weather statement for Ottawa predicting heavy rainfall, with 20 to 35 millimeters (up to nearly an inch) forecast by Saturday morning.A hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls on the Rouge River in Quebec's western Laurentians region is at risk of failure, according to the Quebec Ministry of Public Security. The risk area includes Rouge River Sector, downstream of Bell Falls Dam to the Ottawa River and Grenville-sur-la-Rouge. Those in the affected areas are being told to evacuate immediately, the ministry said."The water flows have reached all-time record levels," Goodale said. "The engineers who designed the facility believe that it was designed to withstand this volume, but it's still raining in the region so the problem could worsen."The evacuations have already now largely taken place. The problem is that if the dam were to give way, people in the area would have less than an hour to get out of the surging water.It is a rural, remote region, and it is not the easiest area to get into or out of; in fact,Read More – Source
