A water main break near the intersection of Massey Road and Davis Place has affected 20 homes, and left both Massey Elementary and the Murray Balfour Arena without water.
Tom Peterson lives in the basement of the house closest to the break. He came home to a disaster.
The damage was impossible to miss: over an inch of water pooled around the foot of his office chair, a mattress left on the ground resembled a prototype waterbed, and soggy cardboard boxes littered the floor.
After sponging all it could contain, the carpet flooring regurgitated swaths of water throughout the basement.
“I just don’t want to be here,” an exasperated Peterson said. “I just want to pack up all my stuff and move somewhere else, but I can’t.”
More than his living situation, Peterson was concerned about his belongings. Due to the amount of water pooled in his room, he hasn’t been able to take inventory.
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“I’m worried that there may be some personal stuff there that can’t be replaced. Now that bothers me,” Peterson worried.
The water main break is the 16th of the month — the same as Regina’s five-year average.
It’s a seemingly impossible total, but one the city blames on the dry climate and a frequent freeze-thaw cycle.
Despite the high number of water main breaks, the city says there’s nothing that can be done to solve the problem.
“We’re not unique to this situation,” Henning-Hill continued. “Many municipalities experience the same thing depending on their soil conditions. The gumbo clay, it expands, it contracts, and then the pipe itself gets shifted around and that causes it to break.”
The break was reported shortly after 7:30 this morning. A repair is expected to be completed tonight.
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