A resident of Montreal North found himself with a torn hedge, huge piles of branches and telecom wires strewn across his property after a visit from Hydro-Québec to replace two poles. Hydro, however, assures that it will be compensated.
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“They left, leaving all the scrap down!” deplores Normand David, pointing to the damage left by Hydro-Québec trucks and employees in front of and behind his house.
Hydro-Québec had to carry out emergency work due to an outage that occurred on November 13 in the sector. Their teams had to replace two poles and transfer a transformer and electrical wires.
“They told me that when it’s an emergency, they don’t have to collect the branches. But it’s not just the branches. My paving stone is sunk by almost two inches because they went over my paving stone without a plank with the tracked platform. plywood nor anything… The grass is torn up, my hedge is broken…”
The paving stone has strengthened following the passage of trucks
Photo David Descôteaux
During a visit to the site, The Journal was able to see the extent of the damage. Telecom wires also swayed in the wind, and some trailed on the lawn at the back of the house.
“A little rake”
Normand David complained for the first time to Hydro-Québec, but the response from the state company was far from satisfactory.
“A lady at the complaints department suggested that I rent a pressure washer to remove the marks on the pavement, that repairing it would only take me about four hours, and to rake it lightly with earth and fertilizer for my lawn,” says the man who is a general contractor and who has already worked for a Hydro-Québec subcontractor.
Piles of branches were left on the ground.
Photo David Descôteaux
The necessary work will require much more effort and time, he said. And some trees will never grow back. “They tore down all the trees in the area and just left me the trunks.”
He will be compensated
“We acted quickly so that the customer was compensated in proportion to the damage that our teams observed, following urgent work during an outage,” responded a Hydro-Québec spokesperson after being informed of the situation. .
“Following the work, our teams themselves observed damage to the land caused by the machinery necessary to carry out the work. We opened a complaint file on November 14 in order to reach an agreement on the necessary compensation,” he added.
Hydro-Québec says it is processing the request at this time. “The customer sent us his first photos of the damage observed on November 19.”
Concerning the telecommunications wires, these will be transferred by the telecommunications company, in this case Bell, later, assures the spokesperson.
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