City working to restore water to about 400 homes with frozen pipes

Toronto, Over the past 10 days, the city says it has received an “unprecedented” 2,000 calls from people across Toronto who said they did not have water due to frozen pipes.

Toronto has been in the grips of a deep freeze for weeks and officials say that while about 80 per cent of those calls were issues with plumbing inside the home, there are approximately 400 homes across the city that are without water due to frozen outdoor water supply pipes.

Toronto Water General Manager Lou Di Gironimo told reporters Wednesday that crews are only able to thaw out about 15 to 20 lines a day and that there is a “significant backlog.”

Some homes, he said, have been without water for as long as eight or nine days.

“We understand that it is not a pleasant situation at all to have a home without water,” Di Gironimo said. “We have added additional work crews in Toronto Water dedicated to trying to get temporary solutions in place.”

Di Gironimo said that while residents wait for a permanent fix, crews will work to temporarily restore water to affected homes by installing ‘highlines,’ which will tap into water lines from neighbouring residences. If this is not possible, the property will be put on a ‘priority list’ to have the outside water service thawed.

“We have pulled in additional resources from within the city and outside the city to try to expedite this and get more work done as quickly as we can,” he said, adding that the city has also taken steps to improve its communication with customers.

The call volumes over the past 10 days, Di Gironimo said, are 10 times higher than what the city normally sees for frozen water services.

“Toronto Water… had been averaging over the past decade about 200 to 300 frozen water services per year. In this case, in 10 days, we received 2,200 calls. It just completely overwhelms our ability to respond,” he said.

“If I look back on our historical records, we haven’t seen these numbers of frozen water services since 1993. It has only been a recent occurrence these last two winters.”

Coun. Joe Mihevc told CP24 that aging infrastructure coupled with the brutally cold winter we’ve been having are responsible for the water issues.

“We have not had a February like this as long as I can remember and I was born and raised in this city. Sooner or later the frost line goes deeper and deeper as there are no thaws and we have not had a thaw I think since Christmas time so that is what really the problem is,” he said.

“Those pipes, many of them are only four feet under the ground, that’s the standard and that is why they are freezing.”