Global Courant 2023-05-06 22:00:36
In downtown Baie-Saint-Paul, Que., about 60 miles northeast of Quebec City, a small office bustles with activity as hundreds of volunteers show up to be assigned a task.
Days after severe spring flooding in the borough washed away roads, flooded basements and displaced more than 500 people from their homes, some 600 people volunteered to help residents clean up the damage and save all belongings that they can.
“The last few days have been very chaotic,” said Clément Turgeon Thériault, who gathered the volunteers and organized the cleanup after seeing how badly his father’s house had been damaged by Monday’s floods.
As general manager of the city’s popular summer music festival, Le Festif!, Turgeon Thériault says he spoke to community members earlier this week and felt a real willingness to help their neighbors. The problem was they didn’t know where to start.
Clément Turgeon Thériault, left, is the general manager of the city’s popular summer music festival, Le Festif! He organized the cleanup after seeing how badly his father’s house had been damaged by Monday’s floods. (Emilie Warren/CBC)
That’s why, in collaboration with the city, he gathered some of his colleagues at Le Festif! and opened his office doors to convene and deploy anyone who would lend a helping hand.
People come out in droves, volunteer to wade through rubble and mud, and go door-to-door helping residents with whatever they need, including removing furniture, breaking up damaged floorboards, and cleaning up their garden.
Clean-ups continue throughout the weekend as nearly 200 households remain under evacuation orders.
Audrey Simard and her mother, Manon Tremblay, spent Friday morning shoveling mud out of people’s basements and garages.
While the couple was not personally affected by the flood, they know many people who were and they wanted to help clean up.
“If it happened to me, I’d like help,” Simard said. “I think it’s a good thing and we want to do it.”
Volunteers go door to door helping flood victims with whatever they need, including removing damp and destroyed furniture from their homes. (Emilie Warren/CBC)
Tremblay, who says one of the two firefighters who died after being swept away by rushing floodwaters was her colleague, says offering her services in this way is the least she can do.
“If people have a few hours to spare, it’s a really good deed,” she said, calling on others to help. “People say thank you very much and are very grateful.”
With gloved hands, Brigitte Racine, a city pharmacist for 30 years, helped clear a flooded basement with other volunteers—her second day helping those in need.
“It’s satisfying to help people, but I don’t do it for the recognition. I do it because I was doing well, I didn’t get hit — I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
Support ‘show what Baie-Saint-Paul is’
One resident grateful for the help is Andrée-Anne Théroux, a mother of two young children whose entire basement and first floor of her duplex were flooded this week.
With family in Montreal during the period of heavy rain, she says she came home with complete devastation, describing her neighborhood as something out of a movie.
“All the mud everywhere, first responders everywhere, like flooding — it was just crazy,” she said.
Then she walked into her house, where all her photo albums, souvenirs and books were stored in her basement.
Andrée-Anne Théroux, pictured with her four-month-old daughter, moved to Baie-Saint-Paul just seven months ago with her husband and four-year-old daughter. She says the support she’s received from her new community has strengthened her belief that she made the right decision by moving to the city. (Emilie Warren/CBC)
“You see your little pictures from when you were a baby floating and you see what you bought for your first daughter and wanted to keep for your second, floating in the mud, and then I kind of broke,” Théroux said.
She moved to Baie-Saint-Paul with her family just seven months ago and says she didn’t know anyone who could help them. She never expected the reaction she would get from her new community.
“They don’t know me … and there was a line of volunteers,” she said, adding “shows what Baie-Saint-Paul is.”
Théroux’s basement, where her photo albums, souvenirs and books once stood, was completely flooded earlier this week. (Emilie Warren/CBC)
She says the response she’s gotten from complete strangers has been the “light at the end of the tunnel” and has reinforced her admiration for the area.
“I know it’s going to sound weird because something terrible happened here, but it’s only strengthened my choice to be here because I know I want my daughters to be raised around people who have these values,” said she.
Turgeon Thériault, like Théroux, says it lifts him up to see people voluntarily volunteering their time and connecting with their neighbours.
“It’s a huge tragedy, but if these bonds can last after that, it would be a beautiful thing,” he said.
