Dozens of people forced to evacuate their Quebec City homes when the St. Charles River burst its banks do not know when they will be allowed to return home.

Officials including Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume and Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux are meeting Monday night with the 47 residents affected to apprise them of the situation and let them know how to make claims regarding damage to their homes.

“It’s difficult to say right now when they’ll be able to return back home. Obviously we had to ensure their safety, their security. Some of those families have been taken in by the Red Cross,” said Coiteux, adding that the team will explain at the meeting the financial compensation packages available to them.

A buildup of ice dammed the river on Friday as about 40 mm of rain fell. With nowhere to go, the water flowed into a low-lying area, with more than one metre of water accumulating in the streets and homes of the Duberger/Les Saules neighbourhood.

As the temperature plummetted Friday night, much of the water froze.

Cars that were parked on the street now look like they have been submerged in the middle of a pond, with water and ice as high as the windows.

Civil security workers monitored the situation over the weekend but the river's flow was too fast to safely do anything.

Bill Noonan of the Quebec City fire department said working over the weekend would have been too dangerous.

"What could happen is you could aggravate the situation. Instead of having 38 houses to evacuate you could have something like 150 houses," said Noonan.

As the river flow slowed down on Monday, crews brought in special equipment, including backhoes with chains on tires, and were more successful in breaking up the ice.

"Right now it's secure for the people on the shovels," said Noonan.

Crews are working to push the current back into the riverbed, which could take several more hours or even days.

In addition to the evacuated houses, Quebec civil protection spokesperson Michel Therrien said it’s possible another 30 homes may need to be evacuated if water levels continue to rise.

Coiteux said Monday that evacuees will be receiving the same amount of compensation as those affected in the spring floods who received a special package, and that the money is coming “as soon as possible.”

“At the moment we have people compensated through the special specific program we set up last spring. Everybody should be entitled to have exactly the same amount of assistance. It’s a question of equity among people who lives through a very dramatic situation. This is a period of anxiety, it’s a period which is very difficult, so we have to be in total solidarity with people,” he said, adding that the package will apple to 30 municipalities that have seen flooding over the last few days after the dramatic fluctuation in temperature.

Coiteux also said more flooding may be on the horizon in the coming years due to climate change.

"This is something we fear will happen more frequently in the future because of global warming," he said.