Broken water main floods Montreal, affecting thousands and prompting boil water advisory¹



Nearly 150,000 Montreal homes were put under a boil water advisory on Friday after a broken water main erupted into a “geyser” that transformed streets into streams, paralyzed traffic and forced people to evacuate² from flooded buildings.



Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said many residents east of downtown woke up around 6 a.m. to firefighters urging them to get out of their homes because of flooding risks from the underground water main that broke near the Jacques Cartier Bridge.

By 11:45 a.m. the situation was “under control,” Plante said, and the city’s director of water services said workers had managed to close a valve so the pressure in the water main was dropping. However, the city issued a boil-water advisory that covered a large swath of the northeastern part of the island.