City tackles more than 1,000 service requests as water pools near storm drains
CBC
Jamie Ruff says he received an upsetting call from his wife last week.
In a bid to avoid a large pool of water covering a sidewalk in Marda Loop, near 35th Avenue and 20th Street S.W., she'd climbed into a snowbank and mistakenly fallen in, drenching her clothes in the process.
Ruff immediately called the city. The buildup was coming from a blocked storm drain, and as temperatures warm and the snow blanketing the city continues to melt, the run-off had nowhere to go.
After a few days of inaction, Ruff said he decided to take matters into his own hands.
"It took me an hour and a half to get some signs prepared, and I had to go to get some floaties, like blow up some unicorns," he said. "[It] took me three hours to get mobilized to send a message to the city that, you know, I wanted them down there."
His signs dubbed the area "Marda Lake." The water went roughly halfway up his shins, Ruff said, and as he set up the display, several pedestrians applauded his efforts.
"It wouldn't have been so aggravating, but it's every year on that intersection and it's bad."
The city did clear up the storm drain on Saturday afternoon, Ruff said.
But Corey Colbran, manager of wastewater and stormwater collection for the city, said it's just one of more than 1,000 calls the city is dealing with as the warming temperatures continue to melt large piles of snow — then freeze it again overnight.
"We did have a much higher snowfall this year than last and so consequently the number of 311 service requests has certainly gone up," he said in an interview with the Calgary Eyeopener.
"Our crews are working hard to get to those and we've cleared probably 300 off the list, but certainly we continue to try and get through those."
Most of the calls have come within the last week.
Colbran said the issues range from water getting caught in ice or snow on its way to a storm drain, or the drain itself being completely frozen over.
"Those are ones that we want to hear about and know about so that we can send our specialized boiler equipment there to steam them and get them thawed and running again."