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If home is where the heart is, thousands of hearts around Montreal and across Quebec are breaking as floodwaters rise to unprecedented levels.

Rivers have spilled their banks and are now encroaching on homes in Pierrefonds, Île-Bizard and Ahuntsic, in the city of Montreal, as well as Laval, Rigaud, Lachute, Deux-Montagnes and countless other towns and villages. Homes, and everything their inhabitants hold dear, are threatened. Neighbourhoods are under siege. Basements are swamps of murky water. Yards are vast lakes. And everywhere walls of sandbags, the product of backbreaking human labour, try mightily to hold back the tide. After Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante declared a state of emergency Friday, the possibility of evacuations loom.

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The worst happened in Ste-Marthe-sur-Lac Saturday night when a dike was breached and water poured in, forcing residents to flee.

We are at nature’s mercy. Our cities, communities, villages, hamlets, neighbourhoods and rural areas, our highways, roads, bridges and dams, and of course people’s homes, are being inundated.

Where will it end? What will be left when the waters recede? These are the questions that keep exhausted residents on the front lines up at night — and civil authorities on high alert.

Amplifying the fear, worry and helplessness is the fact many of these same folks found their homes in the harm’s way just two years ago. They battled the waters, salvaged what belongings they could, were left dislocated for long periods, struggled financially and toiled physically to rebuild their lives from the ground up after a so-called 100-year flood. Now they might face the same trial all over again. The strain and worry is enough to break any spirit.