*This story was last updated on Apr. 20 at 5:15 p.m..

The Ottawa River Planning Board is still forecasting another day of rising water levels after a week of rain and warm temperature caused significant snowmelt and spring runoff across the Ottawa River watershed.

On Apr. 20, the board predicted levels would peak on Tuesday, Apr. 21, with peaks of 113.15 m in Pembroke, 108.75 m in Lac Coulonge, and 75.85 m in Chats Lake (Quyon), and then stabilize and slowly decrease over the second half of the week. 

These are lower than the 2023 peak levels in Pembroke by 10 cm, equal to that year’s peak levels in Lac Coulonge, and 5 cm lower in Chats Lake.

Historical high levels for Pontiac’s stretch of the Ottawa occurred in mid-May of 2019, when they hit 109.17 m in Lac Coulonge and 76.28 m at Chats Lake. 

“Major flood levels have been exceeded in flood prone areas from Lake Coulonge to Lake Deschenes, and are expected to be reached or exceeded today from Gatineau-Hull to Carillon,” the planning board’s Monday afternoon forecast stated. The major flood level is defined as the level at which one or several streets are beginning to flood, with several houses/buildings or neighbourhoods being affected.

In the Municipality of Fort-Coulonge on Monday morning, the Ottawa River was already at 108.60 m, a day ahead of when the planning board had predicted this level. The Coulonge river was at 110.33 m, with a flow of 736 m³/s. 

“We’ve found that the forecasts are not so accurate,” said mayor Pierre Cyr. “It’s going to go above 108.6 easily, we’re already there. It’s probably going to be more like 108.8 m. It’s [rising] a centimeter an hour right now. [ . . . ] We’re hoping it’s going to stop increasing but there’s no way of knowing for sure. If the water goes to 109 m, we won’t have time to react if it goes that high.”

On Sunday evening, the municipality issued a state of emergency to expedite its ability to respond to the flood. 

“We need extra people and a lot of materials, and financially while you’re under the umbrella of the emergency, it will be partly reimbursed,” Cyr explained, adding that operating within a state of emergency enables the municipality to make quick decisions without having to go to council for approval. 

“We have full power, we don’t need to ask questions to the council, we have the go-ahead to deal with the emergency.”

Cyr said his main concerns are preventing the flood waters from entering the town’s sewage system, and reducing strain on the water filtration system. 

“If the water passes over the roads [ . . . ] it will make our waste and sewage system useless. Then we would have to evacuate the people and it would cause a lot of problems in the basement, so that’s our main concern,” Cyr said, noting the municipality is building several sand dikes in key locations to prevent water from entering its sewage system.

“And the other concern is the water treatment for potable water. Right now it’s having a hard time pumping the water from the river, not because there’s not enough but because there’s a lot of debris and fine particles in the water that impacts the capacity of filtration for it to be potable.” 

For this reason, Fort-Coulonge and Mansfield municipalities are asking residents to reduce consumption of drinking water until the end of the flood, to ease pressure on the towns’ water treatment plants.

Over the weekend, the Municipality of Mansfield-et-Pontefract evacuated some 70 residents and cottagers from streets that had been flooded.  

“We invite them to leave the sectors when we close down the streets because if there’s an emergency, it’s going to take longer for [emergency responders] to get there. And if they need a place to live, well we can fix that, temporarily,” said mayor Sandra Armstrong.

The people who decide not to leave are asked to sign a waiver confirming they are choosing to stay put despite the flooded roads. 

Armstrong emphasized that residents should not be driving through flooded roads as the risk of getting stuck is high.

“Yesterday there were three or four cars that got stuck and our firefighters had to evacuate people from the cars, I think it was 12 or 13, so two of our fire crew had to go up there and do that, so that’s a really big problem.” 

Armstrong said the municipality will be closing a few more streets today (Apr. 20), but that it is so far holding off from declaring a state of emergency. 

“Right now we have our emergency plan, we’re using that, and we’re still in our spending budget, so I think right now at 10:34 a.m. we’re still good with our plan.” 

The planning board forecasts flood levels will begin to recede on Wednesday, Apr. 22 thanks to cooler temperatures and dry weather.

Road closures

The following roads have significant flooding, with some closed to traffic altogether. Please note, this list is likely incomplete. If you know of roads that are closed please be in touch with editor@theequity.ca: 

Mansfield-et-Pontefract: 

• Chemin de la Chute 
• Chemin des Rapides
• Chemin de la Passe 
• Chemin Thomas-Levebvre 
• Rue Neault
• Rue l’Écuyer
• Rue Mathias
• Rue Laporte
• Rue Léonard
• Chemin du Grand-Marais
• Rue Felix
• Rue Bélec 
• Rue Mousseau 
• Rue Boisvert
• Chemin Esprit
• The Félix-Gabriel-Marchand Bridge (closed by MTQ to protect it)

Fort-Coulonge: 

• Rue Bord de l’Eau

Thorne:

• Chemin Bryson between chemin Brouse and chemin Anderson
• Thorne Lake Road is also closed. If you need to travel, please use Wesley or 12th Line as alternate routes.
• Mountain Road is practically impassable due to a cleanup operation underway involving heavy machinery 
• The 366 between Ladysmith and Lac-des-Loups had significant flooding late last week and may still be affected

Waltham: 

• Black River Road is now closed to traffic as of Trout Lake Road as there is about four inches of water on the road between Kilometre 12 and Kilometer 15. In some places the water is nine inches deep.
• Chemin du Traversier was closed Saturday

Campbell’s Bay: 

• A portion of chemin River – the municipality has restricted access to local traffic only on rue Second to chemin River, beginning at the intersection of rue McLellan. 

Otter Lake: 

• The bridge on chemin Polish Hills bridge (closed by the MTQ) 
• The bridge on chemin Blaskie

Clarendon:

• chemin River in Sand Bay

L’Isle-aux-Allumettes: 

• chemin M – completely closed
• chemin F – completely closed
• chemin Murphy’s Point – completely closed 
• chemin O’Brien’s Bay – west side closed
• chemin Owls Landing – east side closed
• chemin Maxime – partially closed
• chemin Violet-Robert – partially closed