A monthly rainshower turned into an all-night inferno in the farming town of Cressier in southeastern Quebec.
The “quinche” of rain, as it’s called in French, fell on March 25, triggering a massive flash flood that flattened hundreds of acres of crops in the small town. The dryness before that lasted just over a month.
After a month of just minutes of rain, only 25.3″ fell in Cressier a month ago — only 2.5″ of which fell yesterday, Sunday pic.twitter.com/dTUryyPHBz — Jim Matheson (@jimmattheson) April 3, 2016
Now, the newly arrived crop is in ruins. As of Monday afternoon, more than 300 acres of land had been washed away from 400 properties surrounding the sprawling flood zone.
There have been no serious injuries as a result of the floods, though the flooding has also left agricultural land in both Quebec and neighboring New Brunswick, in eastern Canada, scarce. It’s hard to estimate how much agricultural land may be lost for a country that exports livestock.
Luckily, help is coming from foreign shores, so to speak.
Top Canadian beef and livestock producers Monday welcomed more than 50 tons of cheese, milk, beef and hog products from the United States, with some of the supplies arriving as early as the 1990s.
“We’ve had some incredible assistance from the U.S.,” said Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Don Foxworth, manager of Canadian slaughterhouses association Incathletes, said Canadian producers would gladly accept goods from U.S. beef companies.
“If they can give us the financing and we can sell the animals here, Canada will continue to be in business,” he said.