Quebec municipalities hit by remnants of tropical storm Debby face months of cleanup [Video]

Quebec municipalities hit by the remnants of tropical storm Debby say they’re looking at months of recovery from a natural disaster that was unlike anything they had seen before.

Provincial officials said 14 municipalities remained under a state of emergency Monday afternoon following the torrential rain on Friday that dumped up to 175 millimetres of rain on Montreal and across a large swath of the province.

St-Lin-Laurentides, a small town of 26,000 people about 45 kilometres north of Montreal, was one of them. In an interview Monday, Mayor Mathieu Maisonneuve said he had slept less than 10 hours in total since Friday. “There were roads that were literally destroyed, that don’t exist anymore,” he said. “There are images that will remain engraved in our memories for a long time.”

During the worst of the storm Friday evening, Maisonneuve said, 250 people were trapped in their homes because of flooding on …