For the third time in six years, people living along the Gatineau River are preparing for a flood, as they have been warned to expect the river to overflow its banks as soon as Saturday.
The city is redistributing sandbags so that residents of Gatineau, Que., Can strengthen their properties. One more year, firefighters warn them that they have prepared an evacuation plan, just in case.
“The water is coming. That’s all they can do,” said Suzanne Quesnel, a resident of Rue Adélard, who has been through it all before.
These are very unusual conditions where there is a high flow in the Gatineau and a low flow in the Ottawa River.- Michael Sarich, Ottawa River Regulatory Secretary
According to Francis Labbé of Hydro-Québec, the fault lies with the unusually thick, late-melting snow cover this winter, combined with recent rainfall over the huge Baskatong Reservoir 220 kilometers north of the city.
“All that snow melted and filled the reservoir,” Labbe said. “Everything was under control until the beginning of last week.”
It was then that the region was bathed in as much spring rain in a week as is normally seen in a month. In addition, Hydro-Québec can only control about 40 percent of the water flowing into the Gatineau River. The rest of the cool spring flows into the waterway out of control.
“That’s a lot of water to manage, unfortunately,” Labbé said. “We can only do so much.”
As a result, Hydro-Québec predicts that water levels in the Gatineau River could rise by 10 to 20 centimeters and by 20 to 40 centimeters in the Maniwaki, Que area.
The Ottawa River Basin includes many tributaries, including the Gatineau River. The Baskatong Reservoir is a large body of water about 220 kilometers directly north of the capital. (Ottawa River Guard)
“A very average year” in Ottawa
For people living along the Ottawa River, it’s a different story.
“It could be described as a very average year,” said Michael Sarich, a water resources engineer with the Ottawa River Regulatory Secretariat, the agency that manages flow throughout the Ottawa River Basin.
“As for the river itself, it’s at very normal levels, decreasing toward summer levels.”
In a normal year, water levels would be more consistent across the entire Ottawa River Basin, which includes the Gatineau River. But this is not a typical year.
“It’s just the whims of the distribution of precipitation and snow,” Sarich said. “These are very unusual conditions where there is a high flow in the Gatineau and a low flow in the Ottawa River.”
Michael Sarich, of the Ottawa River Regulatory Secretariat, says conditions are different for the two rivers this spring, and so is the threat of flooding. (Laurie Fagan / CBC)
The secretariat does not anticipate flooding along the Ottawa River this year, and says a relatively low flow could also ease the burden on neighborhoods near the confluence of the two rivers, such as Pointe Gatineau, which has been prone to heavy flooding in recent years. .
Sarich said 2003 was the last time there was a discrepancy between the water levels of the two rivers.
“Looking at these years of comparison and our other models, there are no signs of flooding in Ottawa or the lower part of Gatineau,” Sarich said.
Labbé said Hydro-Québec also hopes the good news on the Ottawa River will be good for people living on the lower Gatineau River.
“We think with the fact that the Ottawa River is calmer this year, it may not be as scary as it was in 2019 and 2017 in Gatineau,” he said.