Warm weather pooling has water services hopping
Posted Mar 9, 2014 5:16 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Last week it was all about bursting pipes, this week the City is dealing with pooling water and overflowing storm drains.
The melting temperatures Sunday, which are expected to last through next weekend, had hundreds of calls pouring into Calgary’s Water Services department.
Ryan Kidd, acting manager of Field and Water Services said the priority goes to any call where property could be damaged and then to where it is effecting the most people, for example, major roads.
He said people should call if they notice large amounts of pooling or something that could potentially be property-damaging and they can also take steps to protect their own property.
“Make sure that the water is running away from your property, so it going onto the street, so it can go into the storm system, things like shoveling snow away from your foundations and just kind of clearing a path so that can drain, as well getting your eaves troughs pointed away from your house,” said Kidd.
He said Calgary is in that strange time of the year where not everything is melting, so icy pipes and runoffs can stop the melt from flowing properly.
He adds the types of calls they are dealing with this year are fairly normal and not reminiscent of flooding from last June.
“With the amount of snow that we’ve had and that is built up on the street, I would say, yeah it is, and this is something completely different from flooding from the river or rain storm. This is a lot more gradual so it’s not as severe and you’re not going to see that large amount of water all come in at once,” said Kidd.
The City is also aware of plugged catch basins, which are in the queue to be cleared out.
