Heavy rain closed the Décarie Expressway for over an hour Wednesday afternoon, as remnants of Hurricane Beryl are being felt across Montreal and southern Quebec.
Here are the highways in Montreal currently affected by the rain, according to Transports Québec:
- Highway 13 North between Hickmore Street and Highway 520.
- Stretches of the 520 Interchange.
As of 4 p.m., police were on the road to help redirect traffic, according to Louis-André Bertrand, spokesperson for Quebec’s Transport Ministry.
He said afternoon rush hour was very difficult because of “major congestion” on Highways 15, 40 and 13.
Transports Québec closed the Décarie Expressway with motorists stranded in their cars and in their trucks.
Its security vehicles were able to remove all stranded motorists by guiding them to the Jean-Talon exit.
“The pumps have been functioning at full capacity,” said Bertrand, saying the highway could reopen once the rain dies down and the pumps have removed the accumulated water.
More than 4,000 Hydro-Québec customers in the Montreal and Montérégie regions were without power as of 6 p.m.
A spokesperson for the public utility says it voluntarily interrupted service for those customers at the request of provincial security officials due to the heavy rain, stressing that the outages are not due to equipment failure.
The Sûreté du Québec says it is monitoring the situation and that there’s no “major collision” at the moment.
Bertrand advised motorists to postpone driving if possible or to leave their car downtown and use public transit instead.
He added that traffic was expected to continue into the evening.
On July 14,1987, 102.2 mm of rain drenched the city, flooding the city’s arterial highway. The improvements made to the expressway since have certainly helped, but they’re not enough to prevent significant flooding when the city is hit by major storms.