Montrealer Adrian Chindris’ watch over floodwaters outside the window of his home led him to mount a rescue operation involving a floating car and a pregnant woman.
On Saturday, nearly 150 millimetres of rain quickly filled the streets in the West Island of the city and started to creep up Chindris’ driveway.
“I see a lady in a car that stops in the middle of the street,” said Chindris. “She stayed in the car for like probably ten minutes, and I was looking to see what she was doing.”
The car, a Volkswagen Atlas, seemed stuck in the increasingly deep water. The woman started to call for help. Chindris approached the vehicle and the driver told him she was pregnant and unsure how to escape.
“I told her, ‘I am going to grab you, we are going to open the door, and water will start rushing in the car, so be prepared.’” said Chindris.
He got her out and then carried her as he waded through water rising to near his waist, taking her toward a shallower area on the front lawn of a nearby house.
“She is shivering, she is cold, maybe (suffering from) hypothermia,” he said. “I knocked (on) the door. Nobody’s home. So, I grabbed some pillows that were on chairs. I put the pillows on her to keep her warm.”
A neighbour, he said, gave him a blanket to keep her warm. The woman’s father was nearby and arrived on the scene to help comfort her and take over from Chindris.
The woman lives on a nearby street and told CTV News she was emotional, but also grateful for the help of a neighbour who came to her assistance.
It was one of the many moments of people pulling together on flooded streets. Clean-up efforts saw people moving heavy furniture for others and offering advice and support as residents faced the task of moving forward from the second devastating flood to hit the area in two years.
Nancy and Greg Warner had just fixed much of the damage from that previous storm when this latest one hit. Friends came to help dry up what could be saved in their home, lending a valuable hand in the face of losses piling up on front lawns throughout the area.
“I had a sister 12 years older than I am,” said Greg Warner. “She’s not with us anymore but she always used to say, ‘Greg, don’t worry about the stuff money can fix.’”
But what money can’t buy is the solidarity of neighbours that surfaced during the flood, even if only for a moment.
