Dozens of seniors have been displaced after flooding early Sunday morning severely damaged units and completely washed through the lobby of a building in central Edmonton.
Edmonton emergency crews were called at 6:30 a.m. Sunday to respond to a water leak on the fourth floor of the Ansgar Villa complex at 10170 120 Street in the Oliver neighbourhood.
When crews arrived about fifteen minutes later, there was “eight inches of water in the lobby” of the building, Brittany Lewchuk with Edmonton Fire Rescue Services told Global News.
“Our fire alarms went off, and I could hear quite a bit of noise,” said Bonita Davidson, a resident. “I quickly got dressed and went out in the hallway, and it was just flooded. The water was above my feet.
“I opened the hallway door because we had to go down the hallways, and it was coming down like Niagara Falls,” Davidson said.
Lewchuk said about 50 seniors who live in the complex have been displaced by the flooding, and some units are “severely damaged.”
EPCOR crews arrived at the building at 6:45 and confirmed a pipe had burst on the fourth floor. EPCOR told Global News the repairs fall on the property owner. Crews will return to the site following the repairs to confirm the issues have been resolved.
Davidson said her unit on the third floor was one of those affected.
“It’s bad. I can’t use my kitchen at all,” she said. The water is in my stove, my microwave, in my cupboards. The floor’s all wet. There’s water in my lights.
“I don’t know where to start, I don’t know where to go. I have no family here,” Davidson said, who added she believed the building owners are looking into alternative accommodations for those displaced.
ETS buses were called to the building Sunday morning as a precaution, but residents were moved to other safe parts of the complex instead.
Edmonton fire also received “several” other calls overnight related to pipes bursting in other parts of the city as the area temperatures warmed.
While the area got a short reprieve from the extreme cold this weekend, Edmonton will have wind chill temperatures hitting -30 again by Sunday afternoon.
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