Montreal storm: First-hand stories of flooding and mayhem

Residents across the greater Montreal region are cleaning up after a historic rain storm caused by the remnants of tropical storm Debby.

Below are some first-hand accounts of the storm.

Stephanie Lenard, Lafleur Street, Sainte-Julienne (about 60 kilometres north of Montreal)

"Me and my boyfriend got home yesterday at 5 p.m. and nothing unusual was going on, raining lightly but all was fine. Not long after, the rainfall was hard for a couple of hours. Around 7:30 p.m., the rain slowed a bit and we went to look [at the creek next to our house] and a piece of the road was missing at this point. So, we checked it every so often and it was getting worse, of course. At one point my boyfriend said, 'I hear thunder.'

"I said, 'No, that's the road collapsing.'"

The road collapsed in Sainte-Julienne, Que. during the storm on Aug. 9, 2024. (Stephanie Lenard)

Sophia Robshaw, Beaurepaire Drive, Beaconsfield (Montreal West Island)

"It started in our backup valve in the furnace room, and it was city water coming out through; it was just rainwater, so we weren't worried. We were worried that we were going to have a lot of damage, but we weren't that worried.

"Then, we went to the bathroom downstairs, and there was water starting to fill up in the toilet, and the shower was starting to fill up too. Within 10 minutes, water was gushing out of the toilet, an uncontrollable amount of water with feces and debris. It was really disgusting.

"Right now, all of our floors are gone. They're all expanded and scratched up. All the sides of the walls, my mother's bedroom is completely—it's gone. She doesn't have a bed anymore. She doesn't have closets anymore. The basement is unlivable."

A Beaconsfield resident had the most unpleasant of surprises during the Montreal storm on Aug. 9, 2024, when her toilet overflowed. (Sophia Robshaw)

Christina Keating, Miller Street, Ville Saint-Laurent

"The situation was horrible. Our basement got flooded [Friday] morning, around 8:30 a.m., which went up to our ankles, but that was like, clear-ish water, so it wasn't so bad.

"Then, around 6:30 p.m., we got flooded again, but this was black water, up to my knees in the basement, and the streets got full of water. My daughter's car was parked in the street, and she got water up to her glove compartment in the car. She tried to start it this morning, and it doesn't start. Right now, it's a big cleanup, it's not fun. My whole street pretty much got flooded. My next-door neighbour had water up to his waist.

"We were trying to call 911 because we were starting to see smoke coming out of the walls and we were worried a fire would break out and they didn't answer for almost an hour. I guess they were getting calls from everywhere. Luckily, when we got through, the firemen were there within five minutes. I feel bad for everybody that got damaged."

Flooding in Ville-Saint-Laurent caused by the rainstorm on Aug. 9, 2024. (Christina Keating)

Kathleen Kelley, Mercier Street, Les Coteaux (Around 40 kilometres west of Montreal)

"It was phenomenal. It was crazy; we couldn't believe that we were witnessing [such heavy downpour]. Somewhere around five o'clock, it started to come down heavy. Within 10 minutes, all of a sudden, there was four feet of water outside [our downstairs neighbour's] patio door. We were lucky, but everybody, our neighbours, everybody in the bottom appartments, they received, I think six inches of water inside, all the way to the bed, mattresses, everything, all the bedrooms, all the furniture. One of our neighbors had just brought in a La-Z Boy leather couch 24 hours earlier—it's done. It's just chaos." 

    Flooding in Les Coteaux, Que. caused by the major rainfall on Aug. 9, 2024. (Kathleen Kelley)  

 Francis Letourneau, Carrefour Boulevard, Laval

"Honestly, it all happened real quick. Water was rising pretty fast. I'm 6' tall and when I went in the parking lot where people were stuck in their car, I had water up to the chest."

The parking lot of the Holiday Inn in Laval was completely flooded on Aug. 9, 2024. (Francis Letourneau)

With reporting from CTV News Montreal journalist Daniel J. Rowe.