Calgarians clean up after burst pipes, water main breaks

Calgarians are recovering from the after-effects of the recent cold snap, which saw temperatures plummet to -30 C, including ruptured water mains in several neighbourhoods.

Sasha Carr was one of many drivers who came out Thursday afternoon to find their cars sitting in a large, icy puddle where a parking lot previously sat in the central Eau Claire neighbourhood.

“It was about two feet of just a puddle, so I had to go through it,” Carr said. “My socks and my shoes got soaked… I didn’t know if I would get my car out because, like, it all looks like it was ice.”

Carr and other motorists were able to free their vehicles from the parking lot, which better resembled a skating rink the next day.

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Meanwhile, the managers of at least one building in Eau Claire had to bring in potable water for their residents. The city also rolled out “water wagons” to provide residents with access to clean water while crews worked to repair the water main.

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Icicles were also seen emerging from windows on multiple floors of the downtown Sandman Hotel on Thursday afternoon. Hotel management did not respond to requests for comment from Global News.

Carol Henke, the Calgary Fire Department’s public information officer, said crews responded earlier in the week to the building’s alarm system that sensed water was flowing in the sprinkler system.

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“We always assume that it’s a real fire until we get there and prove otherwise,” she said. “There was a ruptured water line and the water took the path of least resistance following gravity.

“When fire crews arrived on scene, they did isolate that line and turn water off to that, and then left the building in the care and control of building maintenance.”

By midday Friday, the number of water main breaks in the city had risen to five, including the neighbourhoods of Riverbend, Southview, Montgomery and Mayland. More than 220 homes four businesses were affected.

Columbia College Calgary on Manning Road Northeast was one of the businesses affected by the Mayland water main break.

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College president Tom Snell said he was notified of the break Friday morning at 6:30 a.m.

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The lack of water at all five of the college’s campuses made quick work of the decision to close them and move as many classes as possible to online delivery, Snell said.

“We’ve been delivering a lot of our courses using virtual classroom delivery. However, we do have a number of labs (used by) our nursing students as well as our dental assisting students. So we had to cancel those,” he continued. “It also impacted our daycare. So we had to inform the parents whose children attend our daycare that the daycare has to be shut down for the day.”

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Snell said he expect the college to be back to normal on Monday.

The water main break is a first for the college, although it has had issues with flooding from rainfall in the past that damaged a building and forced it to close, Snell said.

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But those are rare events, he continued. “I think we’ve been closed two days in 40 years, as far as shutting down all classes are concerned.”

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Columbia College wasn’t the only school in the city that experienced problems with frozen pipes.

On Friday, Nellie McClung School in the city’s Palliser neighbourhood said it is drying out and cleaning up after a burst pipe earlier this week.  In-person classes are expected to return on Monday.

In a statement, the school said there may be “outstanding cosmetic work that remains unfinished” when regular classes resume and that access to a washroom and part of a hallway in the building will be closed for the time being.

The school also said most of the work will be done outside of school hours.

Henke said it’s possible the city will see more burst pipes in the coming days as daily high temperatures are expected to go above the freezing point.

“When a pipe freezes, the ice can act as a plug. It can still crack or break the pipe, but it acts as a plug. And it’s not until that ice plug thaws that the break in the line then makes itself known,” Henke said.

“With the warmer weather, we will again see a continuation of these types of calls for those that didn’t make themselves known in the moment.”

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