One year after devastating floods wrecked homes on waterfront properties across Quebec, residents are still rebuilding, and cities are experimenting with new ways to block water from rising rivers.

Itsik Romano is one of those residents who can easily point to flood damage from last year that has yet to be repaired in the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, on the north shore of Montreal's West Island.

"The water hit on our street up until about here," he said, pointing to a mark about knee high up his garage door, which is more impressive than it sounds: Itsak's home is 200 metres away from the water front, and another street lies between his home and the Riviere des Prairies.

His file with the provincial government is almost resolved, but the year of grief has taken its toll and he's heading to court. Itsak has filed two lawsuits against the city of Montreal citing negligence.

"We were calling the city three weeks before the flood even appeared in our street because we saw the signs. Water was accumulating in the park next door to us and they did not provide us with any sandbags, with any particular help," said Romano.

He is asking for $30,000 compensation.

"On top of the stress of rebuilding your house, saying goodbye to all the things you lost during the flood and having to think about how can I continue to live in here while I'm not getting the help that I need," said Romano.

It's a problem that borough mayor Jim Beis is acutely aware of, and he has spent the past year ensuring the borough is more prepared.

Knowing that water levels rose drastically over the course of one night last spring, this past year the borough built permanent structures in several areas, purchased materials to build 30,000 sandbags, and set up temporary dikes in multiple locations.

"We've reinforced a lot of the natural dikes that were in place. We've installed temporary dikes in other areas. We've purchase equipment like water wall, water gate systems," said Beis.

At the end of Dauville St., which runs all the way to the water's edge and can be used as a boat launch, the borough has set up what's called a Muscle Wall: it's an interlocking set of plastic barriers that can be set up with a lot less manpower.

"This replaces 400 bags and hours of manpower not only to assemble and transport and build, but it takes less than an hour to put together with two or three employees," said Beis.

"We know that what we were doing throughout April last year was we were slowly building temporary dikes to be able to control the water. We had an increase as well of about 30 or so inches (75 cm) in a couple of hours overnight which caused the bulk of the damage in our community and this was the case in 250 other communities, and so we've learned from this," said Beis.

The borough has also produced a guide for residents in case of flooding, and told citizens about the extra equipment they can acquire to minimize future damage..

Off island, the town of Rigaud was one of the worst areas in the province.

After the floodwaters receded dozens of homes were uninhabitable: 37 houses were demolished, and many homeowners are rebuilding.

Mayor Hans Gruenwald Jr. said many people have become intimately aware of the town's bureaucracy.

"In many cases they had issues with permits, issues with claims, the cheques didn't come," said Gruenwald.

In Pierrefonds, Romano had many of the same issues.

"There's a lot of red tape with the government and it's very difficult to deal with the government and you need to be proactive," said Romano.

Romano said that if there is any good that can come out of last spring's deluge it's that the disaster brought him closer to his neighbours.