WINNIPEG – More than 4,000 Winnipeggers who are at risk of their pipes freezing received hand-delivered letters this weekend.
There were 2,500 letters delivered by Saturday evening to homes at risk and by Sunday morning another 1,500.
Residents who received the letter have been asked to keep cold water trickling at the width of straw from one tap.
The delivery of the letters comes at a steep cost.
Alex Forrest, president of United Firefighters of Winnipeg, said the five hours it took roughly 35 crew members to deliver the letters Saturday night was considered overtime. With a junior firefighter receiving approximately $40/hour at the overtime rate, the deliveries cost the city about $7,000 Saturday night alone.
Not only is it draining money, but also draining for the firefighters.
“I can tell you this is not sustainable for long. The guys are literally going from fires to delivering water to going to EMS calls. It’s not affecting service, but there’s literally no downtime for the firefighters,” Forrest said.
The city is also picking up the cost for residents who have to keep their water trickling for the next couple of months.
“I had to send in my water meter reading before starting to run the water, and the city is paying for the amount of water it takes to run it at a trickle continuously,” said Dana Stoesz, who received the letter Saturday night.
But Stoesz has decided to find a way to make good use of the constant water trickle and posted an advertisement on Kijiji for free water to anyone who is without because of frozen water pipes.
“I just thought there must be a lot of people without water and here we are wasting water, and a friend said, well if you posted it on Kijiji, maybe someone who needs it will notice,” said Stoesz.
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