Dorval residents demand better flood measures

After Sunday’s intense storm, Dorval residents who got flooded say they worry whenever the weather forecast calls for rain.

After Sunday’s intense storm, residents who got flooded say they worry whenever the weather forecast calls for rain — like one Dorval family who is already sand-bagging their front yard.

Shanna Kavanagh got 24 sandbags from the city of Dorval and then sent her husband out to buy more.

“I don’t know how else to protect my house and my belongings,” she says.

Her plan is to keep that sandbag barrier at the top of her downward sloping driveway until November to prevent more flooding.

“I feel like I’m preparing for war against mother nature,” she says.

During a rain storm in early August last year, Kavanagh’s basement flooded. And it happened again this past weekend.

A video she recorded shows her driveway full of water pouring into her garage and basement.

Her street, Vinet Avenue, fills with water and then cascades down her driveway.

“The pluvial system doesn’t support the water, and I’m at the lowest peak of the street. So overall it’s the it overflows the curves and then accumulates at the lowest point,” says Kavanagh.

Other neighbours who have also been flooded say the rain water accumulates quickly and drains slowly.

Kelly Faubert has lived across the street for over a decade and says she never had issues with water.

“And then in this last year, like three or four times, the streets have been completely full. So, I mean, you can blame the weather, but I think it’s an infrastructure problem,” she says.

A few doors away, Helene Quintal says she had no problems for 60 years.

“Just the stress of living through that again this year ... I don’t know what the city can do but they have to do something about it,” she told CTV News.

Dorval Mayor Marc Doret says the city is on it.

Besides meeting with Kavanagh to see the problem on her property, he wants to reassure her and others that the city is working on improving existing infrastructure to reduce the effects of heavy rains and provide some financial help.

He wants to put in place a grant program similar to Montreal’s.

“One of the interesting features of that program will be for people who have downslope driveways. And there is a solution that exists. It’s a pressurized garage door,” he says.

The city would help homeowners who want to convert from a traditional garage door to one of these efficient pressurized garage doors, he added.

For some residents, it can’t happen quickly enough.

“[To have] more rain like we had on Sunday, it would be just overwhelming for us. You know, it’s too much,” says Quintal.