This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (June 2011)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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Date | April 2011 – End June |
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Location | New York Quebec (Montérégie) Vermont |
Deaths | None |
The 2011 Lake Champlain and Richelieu River floods were a series of water level increases that began at the end of April 2011 and caused a subsequent overflow of the Richelieu River in Canada and Lake Champlain in the United States. [1] The flooding occurred due to record snowfall in the area followed by its snowmelt and in combination with intense spring rains. [2] Lake Champlain stayed at flood stage for 67 days from April to June, and on May 10, 2011, the lake broke its previous flood level set in 1869 by reaching 102.8 ft. at Rouses Point, New York. [3] [2] [4] The floods affected about 3,000 homes in Montérégie [5] [6] and caused an estimated six million U.S. dollars of damage in seven counties in the northern area of Vermont. [7] [8] The damage was so bad that a state of emergency was declared by Vermont on May 5, 2011. [9] Similar damage was reported in New York State.
In Quebec, the major cities affected by the flooding were Venise-en-Quebec, Noyan, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Henryville, Saint-Paul-de-l'Île-aux-Noix, and Sainte-Anne-de-Sabrevois. [10] Citizens of Quebec were supplied with safe drinking water by the government due to the prolonged period of time in which the city's water supplies were likely contaminated. [2] On May 5, the Canadian Forces were requested to help evacuate residents and build dikes to try to protect areas at risk.
Operation Lotus was the name of the military operation that assisted citizens in the Montérégie area in response to a formal request for assistance from the province of Quebec as a result of this natural disaster. [11] [12] The Canadian Forces worked to limit the damage caused by the worst floods to occur in the valley of the Richelieu River and on Lake Champlain over the previous 150 years. [13] Over 650 Canadian soldiers and sailors participated at one time or another in Operation Lotus until it ended on June 17. [14]
Lake Champlain is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec.
Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, navigator, cartographer, draftsman, soldier, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He made between 21 and 29 trips across the Atlantic Ocean, and founded Quebec, and New France, on 3 July 1608. An important figure in Canadian history, Champlain created the first accurate coastal map during his explorations, and founded various colonial settlements.
The St. Lawrence River is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a roughly northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting the North American Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean, and forming the primary drainage outflow of the Great Lakes Basin. The river traverses the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, as well as the U.S. state of New York, and demarcates part of the international boundary between Canada and the United States. It also provides the foundation for the commercial St. Lawrence Seaway.
Champlain is a town in Clinton County, New York, United States. The population was 5,754 at the 2010 census. The town is located on the western shore of Lake Champlain, near the northern end of Lake Champlain and is on the U.S./Canadian border.
The Richelieu River is a river of Quebec, Canada, and a major right-bank tributary of the St. Lawrence River. It rises at Lake Champlain, from which it flows northward through Quebec and empties into the St. Lawrence. It was formerly known by the French as the Iroquois River and the Chambly River, and was named for Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful minister under Louis XIII.
La Vallée-du-Richelieu(The Valley of the Richelieu) is a regional county municipality in the Montérégie region in southwestern Quebec, Canada. Its seat is McMasterville.
The Champlain Valley is a region of the United States around Lake Champlain in Vermont and New York extending north slightly into Quebec, Canada. It is part of the St. Lawrence River drainage basin, drained northward by the Richelieu River into the St. Lawrence at Sorel-Tracy, Quebec. The Richelieu valley is not generally referred to as part of the Champlain Valley.
Montérégie is an administrative region in the southwest part of Quebec. It includes the cities of Boucherville, Brossard, Châteauguay, Longueuil, Saint-Hyacinthe, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and Vaudreuil-Dorion.
The Missisquoi River is a transboundary river of the east shore of Lake Champlain, approximately 80 miles (130 km) long, in northern Vermont in the United States and southern Quebec in Canada.
Autoroute 35 (A-35) is an Autoroute in the region of Montérégie, Quebec, Canada. Constructed in the 1960s, the A-35 links Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu with Montreal via the A-10. The A-35 is also the primary route for traffic between Montreal and Boston, although it ends 13.4 km (8.3 mi) short of the U.S. border. South of its current terminus in Saint-Sébastien, the A-35 continues as two-lane Route 133 to the border. An extension of A-35 to meet Interstate 89 at Saint-Armand will complete a nearly 500 km (310 mi) limited-access highway link between Montreal and Boston. It had been scheduled to open in 2017, but construction was on hold and now will be completed up to the Canada-US border by 2023.
Iberville was a city in the Montérégie region of the Canadian province of Quebec on the east side of the Richelieu River, across from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. It was about 30 miles (50 km) from Montreal, and about the same distance from the United States border at the head of Lake Champlain. In 2002, Iberville merged with neighbouring Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, along with several other neighbouring towns and villages.
The Rock River is a tributary of Rock River Bay, an arm of Missisquoi Bay in the northern part of Lake Champlain. The river rises in the town of Franklin, in Franklin County, Vermont, United States, flows west into the town of Highgate, Vermont, and then north into Saint-Armand, Quebec, in the Brome-Missisquoi Regional County Municipality, administrative region of Montérégie, in the southwest of the province of Quebec, Canada. The river then turns south and re-enters Highgate, flowing into Rock River Bay north of Highgate Springs.
Lacolle is a municipality in southern Quebec, Canada, located in the administrative area of the Montérégie, on the Canada–United States border. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 2,680. The Lacolle River runs eastward through the middle of the town and empties in Richelieu River. More people cross the border illegally from the United States there than at any other point. Almost nineteen thousand people were detained in 2017. The nearest town across the border is Champlain, New York.
The American Lakes to Locks Passage and the corresponding Canadian Route du Richelieu is a scenic byway in northeastern New York in the United States and in southern Quebec in Canada. The byway unifies the interconnected waterway of the upper Hudson River, Champlain Canal, Lake George, and Lake Champlain; this waterway is the core of North America's first "super-highway" between upstate New York and the Canadian province of Quebec. The initiatives of the Lakes to Locks Passage aim to unify the byway corridor as a single destination. The US portion of the passage is a New York State Scenic Byway, a National Scenic Byway, and an All-American Road. The Canadian portion is a tourist route by the Quebec Ministry of Tourism.
L'Acadie is a former town in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada, on the west side of the Richelieu River, across from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. It was about 30 miles (50 km) from Montreal, and about the same distance from the United States border at the head of Lake Champlain. In 2001 L'Acadie merged with neighbouring Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, along with several other neighbouring towns and villages.
The Champlain Sea was a prehistoric inlet of the Atlantic Ocean into the North American continent, created by the retreating ice sheets during the closure of the last glacial period. The inlet once included lands in what are now the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as parts of the American states of New York and Vermont.
Pike River is a tributary of lake Champlain, flowing successively in:
The Chambly Basin is a shallow, oblong body of water formed by an enlargement of the Richelieu River, extending out from the foot of the rapids on the river between Chambly and Richelieu, in the Quebec region of Montérégie. The towns of Chambly, Richelieu, Saint-Mathias-sur-Richelieu and Carignan surround the basin.
Spring snowfall and heavy rain caused floods in southern Quebec on 3 May 2017. In total, 5,371 residences were flooded, 4,066 people were forced from their homes, and 261 municipalities were affected, largely in the Outaouais Region, the Greater Montreal Area, the Montérégie, the Mauricie, the Gaspésie and the Côte-Nord regions. The floods were listed as the third most significant weather event of 2017 by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.
The 2019 spring floods in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick were exceptional floods in eastern Ontario, southern Quebec and from the St.John River region to New Brunswick, Canada. In fact, flooding along the Ottawa River has been recognized as the most important weather event of the year 2019 in Canada, and the one along the Saint John River as the ninth, by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The flooding caused by the rapid spring snow melt, coupled with frozen ground, and several heavy rain events that resulted in abnormally high cumulative rainfall for April and May.