Iqaluit residents still without water 'furious' over lack of information
CBC News | Posted: March 14, 2015 4:11 PM | Last Updated: March 16, 2015
Some Iqaluit homes have been without running water since Wednesday night
The City of Iqaluit promised Sunday that water would "soon" be flowing in all homes.
But after nearly five days some residents still don't have running water and don't know what's happening.
On Sunday morning Paul Keenainak told CBC that crews had succeeded and "thawed the water mains" in part of the utilidor system.
Keenainak, who is listed by the city as the point of contact for inquiries on the water situation, declined to comment further. He said the City of Iqaluit was working on a public service announcement to be released later that day.
No press release was issued as of 5:30pm local time.
On the Facebook site Iqaluit Public Service Annoucements, Naya Reynders wrote that the situation is confusing.
"We all have frozen pipes in our house because we haven't had running water for four days. They told me we have to call plumbers to get the ice in our home pipes thawed. All the plumbers are busy today with emergency call outs. I am so disappointed with the lack of communication with the city," she wrote.
City workers distributed containers of water to residents on Saturday night. The lack of running water affects about 15 housing units on Suputi Street and some homes are now entering their fifth night without running water.
'Nobody knows what's going on'
CBC producer Salome Awa says the water at her house cut out Wednesday night. On Sunday morning she said the water had not yet returned as the building's pipes were frozen.
"People are furious, nobody knows what's going on," she said. "Most of these homes are social housing and many of these homes have many children and many people living in them," she said.
Awa says she had seen workers around the neighbourhood thawing parts of the utilitor system during the weekend. She says she brought water from a hotel to an elderly neighbour.
A city announcement posted to Facebook on Friday said a water main was being attended by contractors "to thaw out a section of the pipe."
The announcement said work would continue until noon Friday, but has not been updated since then.
'We need an update, I have three kids and no water," wrote Evie Arnaquq on a Facebook site called Iqaluit Public Service Announcements.
CBC will update this story as more information becomes available.