More frozen pipes leave Winnipeg homes without water
CBC News | Posted: May 7, 2014 2:06 PM | Last Updated: May 7, 2014
Sure, it's May and the kick-off to camping season is just over a week away, but Winnipeg is still tormented by frost and frozen pipes.
In the past four days, eight more properties were added to the list of home whose water has been lost due to frozen pipes.
"We're still seeing frost at the eight and nine-foot mark. People need to understand that the frost is down there and it has to wait for the thaw to come to it — it's thawing from the top down," said Randy Hull, the city's emergency preparedness coordinator.
"People should not be surprised that when it hopefully hits the 20s and 30s [degrees Celsius] in the early part of June, that there will still be people with frozen pipes.
"And there will still be people dealing with hose lines connecting them from one house to another."
It could be worse, though.
In 1979, the city had new reports of frozen pipes in July, Hull said.
Anyone whose property is still with water but has been identified as being at risk for frozen pipes should still be vigilant, Hull said. He advises those people to keep running a trickle of water from a tap to prevent that freeze-up.
The city, on its frozen pipes information page, notes that other cities in Canada (Brandon, Regina, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa) and throughout the U.S. Midwest (e.g., Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee) are experiencing the same problem.
| Frozen water pipe reports since November 2013 | 2,543 |
| Properties where water has been restored | 1,668 |
| Properties on the list for City thawing service | 875 |
| Properties with a temporary hose line currently in place | 720 |
| Properties identified as being at increased risk of frozen pipes | 7,320 |
| SOURCE: City of Winnipeg |