May 1, 2018 11:07 pm

Quebec floods: One year later, Pierrefonds residents ‘still in same place,’ waiting on compensation

By Felicia Parrillo Reporter Global News

WATCH: It's been one year since the devastating Quebec floods destroyed thousands of homes. As Global's Felicia Parrillo reports, some residents in Pierrefonds-Roxboro have had an especially difficult time.

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Martyna Marcinkowski checks in on her home as often as she can.

It’s been one year since it was destroyed in the spring floods and she still isn’t able to live at home.

“It’s crazy to think that a year ago, we still had our house, we still had our kitchen, everything was rolling — then it just kind of stopped and now we’re still in the same place,” she said.

The main floor of the home was almost completely destroyed.

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The floors, walls and kitchen all had to be removed and rebuilt. Something Marcinkowski says is hard to do without the full compensation from the provincial government.

“It’s frustrating when they don’t give you an exact answer of when we’re going to be coming back home,” she said.

Stalled work is a problem her neighbour Tim Coochey understands all too well.

Though he got some money from the government, he’s still living in a construction zone.

“If we are supposed to be [paid] as we are allegedly told, at the 50 per cent mark of our damages, why did I only get 25 [per cent]?” he said.

Global News reached out to public security minister, Martin Coiteux for an interview, but he declined.

Pierrefonds-Roxboro Mayor Jim Beis says the borough will do better moving forward.

“We have been proactive through the whole thing,” said Beis. “We’ve learned from this experience, but we’ve also put a lot of resources in place to be able to react differently.”

Residents on des Maçons street hope that’s something they can count on.

Though there is an immense amount of doubt, frustration, sadness and loss here, there has been one upside.

“One thing that is for sure is our street came together,” said resident Itsik Romano. “We all met every week after the flood in order to follow up with each other’s files, some people were good in one thing so they helped there, others were good in another thing.