Flood victims given 48 hours to evacuate temporary living situation

Victims of the destructive floods that hit Montreal and the surrounding areas last spring are still bearing the brunt of their aftermath.

For hundreds of families, that means living in hotel rooms or unfinished houses.

Stephanie Doucet has been living in a hotel room with her partner and four children for six months thanks to assistance from Quebec's Public Security Ministry and the Red Cross.

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The situation is not ideal, she said, but it's liveable. The family can't go back to their old home onle-Mercier, one of the hardest-hit areas by the flooding.

But earlier this week, Doucet received a call from the Red Cross telling her the family had 48 hours to leave the hotel room.

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"We didn't know where to go," Doucet said, emphasizing her panic and frustration.

The call came one day after Doucet called her contact at the Ministry of Public Security to inform her that the family had found a place to live, starting in a few weeks.

"We obviously understood that this wasn't going to be forever," she said.

"I just thought they'd be a little bit more compassionate or humane in the way that they would do it."

Doucet spent the rest of the day trying to track down someone from the ministry to help her understand the situation better and move her family's file forward she even went to Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux's office.

After finally reaching a public security representative on the phone, she said she was told there was nothing to be done and that the evacuation notice had come from higher up.

Ministry gives some leeway

After CBC News reached out to the ministry, the family's deadline to evacuate was extended to next Friday.

"It's a relief, obviously, it's just frustrating that we have to go to this extent to be heard," Doucet said.

The Ministry said in a statement that the extension of the evacuation date was warranted, considering this family's particular situation.

The Red Cross will provide assistance to the family as well, the statement added.

Another concern for Doucet and her family has been getting access to the government compensation promised to flood victims.

"We've been waiting on [the Ministry] ... to tell us what's going to happen, how much money they're going to give us," Doucet said. "Meanwhile they're expecting us to furnish a place with our money that we don't have."

Until Doucet and her kin are able to move into their new residence in a few weeks, they will be staying with family.

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