Water main break floods downtown
A water main break near the McTavish reservoir has flooded a chunk of central downtown. Roads are closed, buses are rerouted and McGill has cancelled all classes after many of its buildings were flooded.
CTV’s report has videos, and here’s a brief video on Facebook, but open to anyone I think, showing masses of water going down McTavish. It’s noisy. A view of McTavish from a different angle shows water cascading down to Sherbrooke Street.
Here’s another in which a student gets swept away while attempting to cross McTavish.
jeather 18:54 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
We’re lucky it’s supposed to be warm tomorrow and Wednesday so we don’t have a few inches of pure ice to clean up (it looks dirty and salty enough that it will have a low enough freezing point), though tonight will be a disaster. Before the classes were all cancelled, my cousin had one cancelled because her prof was on the wrong side of the river from the classroom.
Doobish 19:33 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
Way to fail, Montreal infrastructure!
PVM got hit good once again. I was having coffee in the Starbucks during that big rainfall a few months back when the mall got flooded, and I had to head over immediately to see how she’s holding up this time.
Not so good it turns out. The water was just gushing down the parking entrance and the access road to the Queen E. One of the PVM parking levels has slush scattered throughout the north section, and the Two Mountains trains aren’t running tonight because of water infiltration onto the power lines. The St. Hilare line is working fine supposedly because those trains leave from the east side of the ditch.
In hindsight, this event was totally predictable. After the big rainstorm I got to thinking about the topography around PVM, and it turns out Cathcart forms a natural gulley right in front of the parking entrance at the bottom of McGill College. Both Metcalfe and University Streets rise a bit heading towards Rene-Levesque before resuming their downward trajectories. Until Montreal upgrades the drains there, I can see Cambridge Ivanhoe’s flood insurance premiums going right through the roof.
Kate 19:35 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
Doobish, I hadn’t realized the flood had got that far south. Reports I saw were mostly talking about damage around Sherbrooke Street. Yowza.
Chris 20:20 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
There’s no money to fix any infrastructure apparently, unless of course it’s automobile infrastructure, then we get new Turcot, new Champlain bridge, and billions to go around! Yay!
Philip 20:26 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
@qatzelok you never cease to amaze me.
@Chris, I think projects like the Turcot and Champlain get money because they are either a public hazard, or because of their incredible economic impact. The Champlain Bridge is the busiest in Canada and one of the busiest in North America. If it falls, the economy gets a hell of a hit and there’s a chance for hundreds of people to die. In contrast, a soggy basement isn’t the most horrible of disasters, just a major inconvenience (an expensive one, admittedly).
Consider also that they’re in the process of changing/upgrading the pipes in the McTavish Reservoir, if I recall correctly. Something is paying for that.
Ian 20:38 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
I guess I missed the qatzelok post, how sad. I was walking up university around 5:15, having been warned by a drenched businessman not to take the University exit from McGill station as it was flooding. I walked the long way around and a few feet up from Sherbrooke there was about 5 inches of standing water but nothing compared to the torrent coming down University which was about a foot deep and really rushing, but nearly as bad as that McTavish video. It was also flooded out at Milton and as I was picking up my kid from Face and there’s no exit except onto University I thought we might be stranded, but fortunately some students buzzed us into the residences so we cut through the back way to Aylmer. My video http://youtu.be/Icc0I1OLJoQ isn’t nearly as spectacular, but I was pretty impressed by the sheer amount of water. I also saw one silly student fording the deluge but I saw her make it across OK :)
Kate 22:35 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
I didn’t delete any qatzelok comment in this thread, not sure what Philip can be referring to.
Good footage, Ian. Glad you got in and away safely.
Philip 23:14 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
That’s embarrassing; I was scrolling through this stuff so fast I must have merged two threads in my mind. I was referencing the “worker ants” comment from the stuff about free education.
Needless to say, I’m glad we have powerful trade-school worker ants to shut off a burst 48″ water main.
William 23:34 on 2013/01/28 Permalink
Kate is the fairest moderator in the land. If anything she is too liberal.
anon 00:19 on 2013/01/29 Permalink
Chris: seems a bit premature to label it an infrastructure issue when the source of the flooding was a construction site. Seems very likely the construction workers made a mistake, either breaking it or else not factoring in the sensitivity of the pipes adequately when taking action. One is not at all an infrastructure issue and the other is only partially an infrastructure issue.
Doobish 19:56 on 2013/01/29 Permalink
Speaking of Cathcart, if any of you pedestrian types cross it at University, between the Tim Ho and the NE entrance to PVM, do be careful around there.
The great bulk of the traffic on Cathcart is eastbound then heading south on University, which might lead you to think that it’s a one-way street. But it is in fact two-way. It’s happened to me more than once that an impatient douche not bent on making the right turn decided that it was a good idea to cut the queue and head straight east in the westbound lane, taking me by total surprise.
Watch out around there, is all I’m saying.