A wall of water, impassable streets, flooded homes and evacuation orders were the result of a catastrophic water main break to hit downtown Montreal.
Residents reported seeing a geyser of water shooting out the ground and 10 metres into the air when the pipe burst at around 6am on Friday 16th August in a densely populated neighbourhood near the Jacques Cartier Bridge.
Firefighters were soon on the scene, urging residents to evacuate homes due to the risk of flooding. Those leaving had to wade through streets which resembled rivers.
Montreal mayor Valerie Plante has since revealed 300 private and 60 municipal buildings were flooded. 19 households have been taken in by the Red Cross. Hydro-Québec cut off electricity to over 12,000 customers at the request of the emergency services.
It took nearly six hours to bring the leak under control. Montreal City workers managed to close a valve, reducing pressure through the water main break.
Water escaped as far as 4km from the site of the burst, and was even reported flowing into the St Lawrence River.
150,000 homes were told to boil their water but supplies across the city were largely unaffected thanks to Montreal having a parallel feeder main.
No cause has been given yet for the water main break by authorities in Montreal. The pipe was two metres in diameter and installed in 1985. It was under seven-year surveillance and had been last inspected in 2018.
Montreal director of water services Chantal Morissette said: “There was deterioration there and that’s the reason why the water main was under surveillance. The next inspection was coming up.”
Once the reason for the break has been determined, repairing the water main and destroyed section of street above it is expected to take one month.
The Montreal water main break is the second major pipe burst to happen in Canada this summer. A similar two-metre diameter main break in Calgary, Alberta, occurred on Wednesday 5th June to the Bearspaw South Feeder Main.
A state of emergency was declared and water rationing introduced. Bearspaw South moves water from a treatment plant in the north of the city to populous areas in the south and east.
Over 50 percent of Calgary’s water passes through it. The break left 1.2 million residents in danger of running dry. Unlike Montreal, Calgary had no parallel line through which to divert supplies.
Two water main breaks causing such damage and disruption in the space of six weeks will bring scrutiny to the state of the country’s pipe network. It will make infrastructure monitoring and pipe repair in Canada hot topics.
Of particular concern will be the amount of prestressed concrete cylindrical pipe (PCCP) running beneath the streets of Canadian cities.
Bearspaw South is made from PCCP. And like many other PCCP installations from the 1970s and 1980s across North America, it burst without much warning only halfway through its original estimated lifespan.
Other municipalities in Canada responsible for water supply networks with PPCP mains may now be wondering if they will find themselves dealing with bursts similar to those in Calgary and Montreal in the future.
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