Updated: Rainfall warning lifted for the Montreal area

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A deluge of heavy rain due to remnants of tropical storm Beryl dumped up to 100 millimetres of precipitation on certain parts of the city, forcing the closure of several highways in the Montreal area on Wednesday afternoon and knocking out power to thousands in the city.

Environment and Climate Change Canada said late Wednesday that various sectors of the city had received 50 to 100 millimetres of rain, much of it falling between 1 and 3 p.m.

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The monitoring station at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport reported 76 mm of rain while downtown reported 56 mm.

A rainfall was finally lifted late Thursday morning after another 25 mm was expected to fall. ECCC meteorologists warned of flash floods and water pooling on roads.

The Décarie Expressway was closed in both directions Wednesday as the trench filled with water. One video posted to social media showed water gushing out of a manhole cover like a geyser. The highway reopened around 4 p.m., with some cars trapped for hours. Highway 13 in Lachine was also closed for a few hours.

As of 6 p.m., Highway 40 was still closed eastbound between Highway 13 and Cavendish Blvd. The ramp from Highway 15 South to Highway 40 East in the Laurentian Interchange was also closed.

The Sûreté du Québec warned water accumulation was making driving difficult on highways.

Regina Zorman saw the flooding unfold from her office building at 7575 Trans-Canada Highway in St-Laurent. She was on a work call when she noticed flashing emergency lights coming from outside shortly after the storm began.

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“I looked out the window and I was horrified to see that there were already cars submerged and it was mayhem, it was chaos,” she said.

After deciding to hunker down at the office instead of trying to make her way home, Zorman began taking photos of what she described as a “total parking lot” on the highway near the Côte-Vertu Blvd. exit. She saw cars quickly going from one-quarter to three-quarters submerged in some areas.

“It was just a real nightmare and there was no way anybody could just get out,” Zorman said. “It was like a jungle out there.”

Eventually, the fire alarm in her office building went off. The garage had flooded and the building was evacuated, Zorman explained.

She was concerned she might get caught in the flood on her way home to Dorval, but was able to make it without issue by the time she left at 8:30 p.m.

“The calm after the rainfall, you could never have guessed — at the time that I was on the road at — you could never have guessed what had unfolded just a few hours before,” Zorman said.

Her office building remained closed early Thursday since it was too wet to turn on the power.

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At the Trudeau airport, dozens of flights were delayed or cancelled Wednesday.

“At this time, there is no impact on the air side and the airport is operational. However, we do have some impacts to the city side in the parking (areas) and traffic around the airport,” said Anne Marcotte, a spokesperson for Aéroports de Montréal.

She noted there is always a “domino effect” during major weather events if there are delays at other airports.

Most power had been restored by 6:30 p.m., with only 392 customers still without power. By Thursday morning, all outages had been resolved.

Of the 8,000 Hydro-Québec clients who lost power Wednesday, 3,100 of them were in the St-Laurent borough, when the electrical room of a high-rise on Marcel-Laurin Blvd. flooded. Power was cut shortly before 2:30 p.m. to much of the neighbourhood between Marcel-Laurin and Décarie Blvd. and between Côte-Vertu Blvd. and St-Louis St. while crews pumped water out of the electrical room, Hydro-Québec spokesperson Johanne Savard said. Power was restored around 6:15 p.m.

The heavy rain across southern Quebec and eastern Ontario came as the remnants of tropical storm Beryl entered the region. The hurricane, which became a post-tropical cyclone, had caused severe weather in southeast Texas on Monday, killing at least four people there, flooding highways, causing power outages and more than 1,000 cancelled flights.

Thursday, expect a high of 24 C during the day, with a humidex of 31 C and a UV index of 6, or high. At night, a low of 19 C. The rain is expected to taper off to showers on Friday, and the sun will return for the weekend.

Katelyn Thomas of The Gazette contributed to this report.

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