The City of Calgary says it has restored water services for two communities affected by water main breaks this week but three are still without water.
Officials offered details about the situation on Friday, saying water main breaks impacted residents in Mayland, Riverbend, Eau Claire, Southview and Montgomery.
In total, water services were disrupted for 221 homes and four businesses, the city said.
It says work is underway to fix all of the issues, but how long it takes depends on a variety of factors.
"Under normal circumstances, water main breaks are repaired, and water is back on within 48 hours," the city said in a statement.
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"The time it takes to fix a repair varies due to several factors including frost depth, digging in frozen ground, how quickly the break can be located, the size of the break, and the current weather conditions."
As it takes longer to complete repairs, some homeowners are feeling the extreme impacts of this latest cold snap.
Inga Adams lives in Southview where she was without water for six days. Service was finally restored on Friday morning.
“I was just so sick of it that it’s been that long, you can’t do laundry, you have to go down to that silly water supply down the road in the freezing cold, it was ridiculous,” she said.
“I know it’s going to take time, but this is twice now in two months. It was broken for four days last time, which was kind of doable, but this was so unfortunate.”
Others like Ernie Janzen who live in Riverbend say they wish the city would have given them more notice to shut off their water when a water main broke on their street this week.
“I got the notice about 15 minutes before water turned off so at least I was home and I was able to pour some water into some pots, but we did not have enough water,” he said.
“Many people are working; they had no chance to even prepare so that’s the frustrating thing. We’ve had to do things like go to the YWCA last night just to take shower and spend over $100 on dinner because we don’t have any water to cook.”
More than 2,000 students at Columbia College on Manning Road in the northeast community of Mayland Heights were impacted by a water main break.
President Tom Snell says his team made the difficult decision to move all courses online for the day and close its childcare centre doors temporarily as crews work to repair the damage.
“We’re heavily designed to handle virtual connection, communication and instruction so we were able to fortunately be able to continue operating, if you will, even if it was at a distance,” said Snell.
“We weren't able to continue our labs. So the students who were attending labs in our dental assisting program and our nursing program, we had to cancel those particular classes, although any theory classes of course they get to attend virtually.”
The city says the reasons for water main breaks include the age, material and condition of pipes, soil condition, ground and water temperature and pressure changes.
It's also important homeowners call 311 immediately if they find their home without any water service or notice water coming up and pooling on the road or sidewalk.
They also need to be prepared, the city said.
"To ensure homeowners have water for drinking, cooking, and flushing we recommend everyone keep an emergency supply of water on hand."
As crews are out working on water main breaks, emergency water supplies or water wagons are dispatched from the city to provide essential needs for residents.
If water outages last longer than 24 hours, the city will also provide residents with recreation passes so they can access showers and other amenities.
There is no way for homeowners to prevent water main breaks in their homes, but the city suggests they monitor cold drafts in their homes in unheated areas as well as around windows and doors.
The city also suggests homeowners keep their thermostats set to at least 15 C, even when they are not at home, as well as opening interior doors and cabinets to allow heat to circulate more freely.
