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The City of Montreal knew that the water main that broke near the Jacques-Cartier Bridge on Friday, flooding surrounding homes and businesses, was at risk and almost needed to be re-inspected.

Speaking to reporters near the site of the break, Montreal’s water utility director said the pipe in question was last inspected in 2017 or 2018 and has been “under observation” since then because it shows signs of wear and tear.

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“Our information told us we could wait until the next inspection phase,” said Chantal Morissette, standing in front of the large crater it had left behind. “But the pipe had burst before, so the corrosion was more advanced than we had expected.”

Morissette would not confirm what condition the pipe was in at the time of the last inspection. She said it is the norm for pipes of this type to be inspected every five to seven years.

If authorities had known that the line was in imminent danger of bursting, the city would have disconnected it from the grid, as it has done with other at-risk lines in the past, Morissette added.

“It’s always a shock when a pipe bursts like this,” Morissette added. “But that’s why we have a preventative inspection program to try to prevent something like this from happening as much as possible before it happens.”

The almost two-meter-wide pipe was laid in 1985 and was part of the city’s drinking water network. The city is still investigating what caused the pipe bursts.

The eruption occurred around 5:45 a.m. on Friday on René-Lévesque Boulevard, east of de Lorimier Avenue. During the course of the morning, a geyser of water shot several meters into the air, flooding about 50 homes and 20 businesses.

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About 100 people had to leave their homes and many spent the weekend cleaning up the damage caused by the water. In total, 16 households asked the Red Cross for housing assistance.

A now-repealed boil water advisory was also put in place for parts of the city’s eastern districts.

Speaking to Morissette on Monday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said she understood that the past few weeks had been a major challenge for the population due to flooding from the remnants of post-tropical storm Debby and now the burst pipe.

Plante said that in addition to 60 municipal buildings, more than 3,300 private buildings or households on the island were affected by the flooding.

She reminded those affected that they had two weeks to file claims with the city. When asked about the city’s legal liability for the burst water pipe, Plante said it was too early to say because the city was still investigating what went wrong.

Both Morissette and Plante stressed that the damage caused by the main break could have been even worse if improvements had not been made to the city’s water infrastructure in recent years.

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As an example, they cited the city’s efforts to rebuild the Rosemont Reservoir to ensure there were no water supply interruptions on Friday.

“We prevented a much bigger disaster,” Plante later wrote on social media. “Without (the reservoir), Montreal’s east end would have dried up.”

Morissette added that improvements to the network in recent years have reduced the number of water pipe bursts in Montreal by 50 percent.

City workers have begun reopening the section of René-Lévesque Boulevard where the break occurred, but repairing the pipe itself will take longer because the city needs to order the necessary parts.

It is known that the type of pipe in question has a shorter lifespan than the older pipes in the city’s network, Morissette said.

Overall, however, 90 percent of the city’s water infrastructure is in good condition and the other 10 percent is constantly monitored, she said.

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