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braid: gondek's house hammered by hail; now she faces another round with water crisis
we can expect more cosy chats from gondek about how to use our toilets and take a shower. it's not what a mayor would prefer to talk about
aug 7 2024
3 minute read
calgarians will see more of this as the bearspaw south feeder main will require more work in the coming weeks. here, city workers are on the repair site in montgomery on july 20.
gavin young/postmedia
mayor jyoti gondek’s house and a family car were heavily damaged by hail monday night.
“we had seven minutes to get the plants inside and the cars into the garage and pull the blinds down before we were absolutely pummelled up where i live in north central calgary,” gondek said in an interview.
“so you know, i can relate to how people are feeling. but i have a job to do.”
on wednesday , the job was to announce that 16 more spots on the infamous south bearspaw feeder main have to be repaired, leading to at least another month of water restrictions.
the renewed restrictions and shutdowns will start aug. 26 and continue to the end of september — but the end date “is an estimate,” gondek says.
this means the glenmore system will take up the slack once again, and water restrictions will continue, becoming more restrictive again at the end of the month.
for gondek and everyone else, it’s another downer moment in calgary’s crappiest summer since the 2013 flood.
the main broke june 5 ; westjet mechanics went on strike june 28; the heat fried us for two solid weeks in july and early august; then the hailstorm hit , heavily damaging many homes and the calgary international airport, which now brings more flight cancellations .
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and now, the water crisis is right back to ground zero.
gondek has had an undeniably hellish summer, with all the failures and damage piled onto low polling numbers, the bag bylaw controversy , and the blanket zoning debate .
but it’s almost impossible to pry more than a few words out of her about her own feelings or even the damage to her home. she just sticks to today’s dismal dose of news.
“we are in a very similar situation to where we were in june,” she says. the bearspaw feeder has to be depressurized — meaning shut down — while the repairs are done.
“however, the big difference is that in june, we had no idea that that feeder main was going to break when it did, and that very quickly threw us into an emergency response situation.
“what we are able to do this time around is advise residents and businesses that we will need to do a planned repair that will take approximately four weeks.
city workers inspect the damaged feeder main pipe on june 10.
gavin young/postmedia
one street in bowness will be a work site, as will parts of 16th avenue n.w. traffic will be a big problem. gondek vows that the city will try to keep businesses open and accessible.
“we will once again be asking calgarians to reduce their water usage inside their homes and businesses, and we will commence construction on the number of sites where we have identified weaknesses, but we’re giving everybody advance knowledge of the timeline so people can plan accordingly.”
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we can expect more cosy chats from the mayor about how to use our toilets and take a shower. it’s not what a mayor would prefer to be doing in a pre-election year.
gondek said the “pipe diver” inspection by pure technologies usually takes many weeks.
“but they have expedited it, and in a matter of just under two weeks, they have come back with some strong indications that there are about 16 points of weakness or stress that should be addressed in the short term.
“now i need to be clear, this doesn’t mean that these are points that are going to break right now. it means that we need to strengthen these locations to ensure that the pipe stays strong.”
there were signs of trouble last week, when the city shut down the third pump at bearspaw and continued to impose restrictions on water use.
michael thompson, the city’s infrastructure boss, said that would reduce water in the mainline to 70 per cent.
now it will sometimes be empty and calgarians will again be told to lower water use in the home.
the mayor is clearly as sick of this rolling crisis as everybody else. and summer isn’t over yet.
don braid’s column appears regularly in the herald.
x: @donbraid
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