When the water rushed backward, finding no sufficient outlet in the channel, Chaboillez Square, St. James Street West, Craig Street to Chenneville Street, and then to Cote Street, all were soon covered, and those who had gone from the lower levels to uptown churches, or who had come down to churches on St. James Street, and elsewhere, found that they had to make a detour as far east as St. Urbain and St. Charles Borromee streets, in order to get past the flood. Higher it slowly came up, and was into St. Urbain Street. It was also a few inches deep in St. Germain Street. And the cellars were full almost from one end to the other of Craig Street.
At Victoria Square, several teamsters with express wagons commenced a ferry service which was of great value to themselves and the public, for they charged 5, and in some cases 10 cents, to carry one across “the raging Victoria Canal.”
The eastern limit of the flood was just beyond Bonsecours Market, and Vitre Street was the farthest north. At Bonsecours Market the dealers could not get into their cellars at all.
At Jacques Cartier Square, the water was nearly to the corner of St. Paul Street, and the lamp posts at the corner of Jacques Cartier Square stood about half out of the water. The water washed through the pillar letter box at the corner of Commissioners Street. St. Paul Street west from Custom House Square was flooded. It was partly up St. Nicholas and St. François Xavier, but had not reached St. Sacrament.
Turning down St. Peter, pedestrians were brought to a sudden halt just north of Lemoine Street. The wrecking in the warehouses along Lemoine Street was described as “disheartening and the destruction appalling.”
On McGill Street, the wide space permitted any amount of boating, and skiffs and rafts were plying in all directions. McGill, above Lemoine, was entirely under water.
“A walk to Victoria Square opened the vista of St. James Street West, which street, from St. Michael Lane West, was a sheet of water as far as the eye could reach, the cars on the sidings at the Bonaventure station standing in the flood.”
The City Passenger Railway had ceased to be able to get through to St. Alexander Street, and were almost cut off from proceeding up Bleury. Later on the Bleury Street route was also impassable, the water flowing up Craig to the foot of Place d’Armes Hill.
The fires of the Montreal Gas Company’s works on Ottawa Street were extinguished by water, and consequently the supply was cut off from the whole of the lower portion of the city. Fortunately the company had another plant at Hochelaga which was not flooded.
On the south shore fields of ice swept over the country, knocking down fences, barns, and portions of dwelling houses. Some of the inhabitants who had spent fifty or sixty years in St. Lambert said they had never seen the water reach the height it did this time. At Longueuil the fine old Catholic church had four feet of water in it and nearly the whole village was more or less under water.