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A major aqueduct failure Thursday night has left the Glen site of the McGill University Health Centre without potable water, the MUHC said in a statement Friday morning.
Ambulances have been diverted to other hospitals.
People with outpatient or surgical appointments are asked not to go to Royal Victoria Hospital, Cedars Cancer Centre, Montreal Chest Institute, Montreal Children’s Hospital or the Research Institute of the MUHC. The MUHC says those patients will be contacted as soon as possible.
“Our priority is to ensure the safety of patients and staff at the affected facilities,” the MUHC said in the statement. “We are working with the city of Montreal to restore the situation as quickly as possible.”
Despite millions invested to increase sewer capacity and ongoing work to add retention basins, Montreal’s highway and sewer systems simply cannot handle the volumes of water that fell on Montreal in just a few hours on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
“It was a massive amount of rain and our sewer system isn’t built to catch all that water,” Philippe Sabourin, a spokesperson for the city of Montreal said in an interview Thursday. “Most of our sewer system was built in the ’60s. We weren’t at the time concerned about climate change and there is no way the city can change its water system in months. We will need years to complete this construction work.”
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