Now that the water has receded, several Lake Country residents are busy assessing the damage from Thursday’s water main break.
Thousands of litres of water came rushing down streets and yards, and, in some cases, through homes in the Glenmore Road area.
Mandy Little on Janet Road felt the full brunt of the torrent of water. It soaked her basement and garage.
“It happened so fast that I didn’t have the time to put anything out to try to stop it. It literally just whooshed down the road,” she said.
WATCH BELOW(Aired May 23, 2019): Viewer video of the water main break in Lake Country
Kevin Warkentin is one of the lucky ones. He says most of the water went around his house.
“We had two feet of water surrounding our house, and my neighbour’s house got it. It was pretty scary,” he said.
WATCH BELOW (Aired May 17, 2019): Huge water main break in East Vancouver
One of the hardest hit was Cody Temperton on Glenmore Road. He had four feet of water in his basement.
“The fridge was floating, the couch. Everything was floating around,” Temperton said.
As Temperton and his neighbours try to put their lives back together, some are wondering why the water main break happened in the first place. .
“I’ve heard many stories. I’ve heard that there was an extra pipe that no one knew about — that the city didn’t know about,” said Kevin Warketin. “I heard that the city didn’t turn off the water.
“What’s true? I don’t know.”
The District of Lake Country says it was an accident. It says crews were working on a water line that had been shut off, but struck a second waterline that they didn’t realize was so close to the first one.
“When the excavator actually came in to the work, there was other infrastructure in the ground that they came across,” said Michael Mercer with the District of Lake Country.
The district says it has launched an investigation into the leak. It says the blame will either be on the district or the construction company.