Lots of Lake Ontario shoreline residents have been calling for more water to be released down the St. Lawrence River to reduce the flooding that’s been taking place, but flood conditions down the St. Lawrence may actually be worse than what’s happening on Lake Ontario.
CBC reporters in Montreal have been covering Montreal neighborhoods being flooded from the St. Lawrence and rivers that feed into it. The network says the water started rising more than an inch an hour Tuesday night and kept on all day Wednesday. Firefighters had to evacuate people from 30 homes after a dozen streets flooded. Fifty more homes are on an island neighborhood that has been completely knee-deep. Just like here, local governments are distributing sandbags and they’re also opening emergency shelters.
The International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board says last month was one of the three wettest Aprils on record, and Lake Ontario is now at its highest level since 1993. So is the St. Lawrence River. The board says that makes it impossible to release enough water from Lake Ontario to avoid flooding the lakeshore.