Justin Showler was up to his chest in raging water as he tried to save his Hollow Glen home from flooding.
He eventually lost the battle. By the time the Aug. 9 storm had passed, eight inches of water had puddled in his recently finished basem*nt; his front lawn was a lake; and the road he lives on – Hollow Glen – had been destroyed by water and debris, stranding multiple residents for hours.
“It was intense,” said Showler, two days after the storm that washed out several roads throughout the municipality, including Chemin Fleury, Meech Lake, Mountain and Hollow Glen. He said the storm left a six-foot hole in the road in front of his house.
“It could have been, in its biggest surge, an eight-foot-deep river on the road. It was such an unimaginable amount of water,” he said.
A massive storm hammered Chelsea Aug. 9, sending surging water and loads of debris – large boulders, branches, rocks and sticks – down Mountain Road and flooding multiple properties in Hollow Glen. More than 115 centimetres of rain hammered the region, forcing Chelsea to declare a state of emergency over the weekend to deal with the cleanup.
Showler spent several hours building a temporary retaining wall during the storm, which was made of logs from his property. He said the wall would constantly wash away as more water flowed from the giant hill that borders Mountain Road.
He said he was winning the battle until something gave way on the hill above, and a “raging river” came surging down the road.
Showler noted that at one point two feet of water was flowing across Hollow Glen Road, and when he went to speak to a firefighter on the road, he fell into the rushing water, as the road below had washed away. He worked desperately to pull himself out, as he was getting pummelled by rocks, sticks and branches that had been swept from the hill above.
“It was scary,” Showler told the Low Down. “I fell in, up to my chest, in rushing water, because I thought there was a road there, but it was all eroded underneath, and I fell in. I had to climb out of the rushing water and then get back to my property, which eventually was an island.”
He managed to get back to his home safely, but by that time his makeshift dykes had given way, and his basem*nt was taking in water.
“At a certain point, when we had fully lost and there was eight inches of water and three pumps still going in the basem*nt, and the whole property was under water, you just stop,” said Showler, adding that he cracked a beer and sat on the deck to “watch the river go by” because there was “nothing more to be done.”
Several of Showler’s neighbours were also stranded and couldn’t get in or out of their properties for several hours.
The Meech Lake area was also heavily affected, and the Chelsea Fire Department was forced to evacuate several residents by boat.
“We used boats to evacuate 10 people from the far end of Meech Lake Road,” Chelsea Fire Chief Charles Éthier told the Low Down. The fire department borrowed boats from local residents and the National Capital Commission to ferry residents from their land-locked homes to O’Brien Beach.
“We had approximately 12 firefighters working at that particular location. The first emergency call came in at 3:11 p.m. and the firefighters were able to head home around 10 p.m.”
Éthier spoke of the challenges that firefighters and Public Works employees were up against with the storm and said that residents should be prepared for emergencies by packing a 72-hour kit that has everything they may need. He said that Chelsea residents showed “resilience” in the midst of this weekend’s emergency.
“We cannot be at all places at the same time, and everyone must prioritize,” he told the Low Down. “Even though the storm had major impacts on Chelsea, 9-1-1 was not overwhelmed with calls from Chelsea residents. We are proud of that fact and that the residents make contingent plans in advance with their neighbours and families.” A bridge at Hendrick Farm was also destroyed by the storm.
According to the municipality, as of noon on Aug. 12, all municipal roads had been reopened, but the state of emergency has remained in place so that crews can continue working on infrastructure. The municipality extended the measure for another 10 days on Aug. 12.
Mayor Pierre Guénard praised his staff, namely Public Works employees who worked around the clock to keep residents safe and roads open.
“Some staff were leaving for holidays. They put a hold on that. They came back to town hall,” he said. “As mayor, and for the team of directors, our main focus is the safety of the population. I’m very glad that nobody in Chelsea, to my knowledge, was hurt. Roads we can repair, but a human life is priceless.”
‘Rolling thunder’ wasn’t thunder
Erin Gregg lives on Mountain Road near Hollow Glen and said she and her kids heard “rolling thunder” during the Aug. 9 storm – around 3 p.m. – but didn’t see any lightning.
That’s when Gregg said she was horrified to see a landslide on the hill above, and loads of water, boulders, sticks and other debris were gushing down towards her property. At the storm’s peak, more than three feet of water raged past her husband James Brooks’ workshop, eventually flooding the inside of the building.
“[My son] went out to check it out on the deck and said, ‘Mom, I can hear the rolling thunder.’ And I was like, ‘That is not rolling thunder, that’s – that’s the forest coming down.’ And sure enough, less than a minute later, just boom,” Gregg told the Low Down, describing what she said was a river of mud, sand, branches and large boulders that were tumbling down from the hill above. Two days later, her property looks like a messy beach, with sand and mud washed up to nearly her shed roof. Gregg, Brooks and several other neighbours will spend the next weeks dealing with insurance and trying to coordinate a cleanup. Their home, which is higher up on the property, was spared from flooding.
This is the second major property crisis this couple has had. In 2001, Gregg and Brooks’ log home was completely destroyed by fire. They rebuilt and now have to deal with another big property cleanup.
But it’s not only them. Scores of Chelsea residents spent the rest of the weekend cleaning up their properties that had mounds of debris strewn about. Nick Atourelle and his wife, Jovie Bilodeau, were lucky enough to avoid getting water in their basem*nt, but they worked hard during the storm, using planks to divert the water and debris away from their property off Mountain Road. By Monday, large heaps of sand and debris were piled beside their driveway, which had tumbled from the hills above. Like other residents, Atourelle said he recalls hearing a loud bang before the surge of water came flowing down.
“There was thunder rumbling, and we’re like, ‘There’s no lightning, we haven’t seen lightning. What’s going on?’ And then I looked out the window, and the water was coming over top of the road,” said Atourelle. “We were freaking out because we could see that it was coming down the road.”
Mayor Pierre Guénard said that cleanup will take “weeks” in some areas, and added that he and staff will be meeting with the National Capital Commission (NCC) in the coming days to assess damage and coordinate a repair plan. Over the weekend, the NCC closed most of its Gatineau Park trails to walkers, hikers and cyclists. The storm closed the Champlain Parkway between the Fortune and Gatineau parkways and took out several footbridges along Trail 13. By Aug. 11, the parkways were reopened, but Dunlop Road remains closed.
