Disaster struck dozens of residents along Main Street South in late May and early June, leading to a battle with the city. 

Residents along that street were startled to find their basements flooded in up to 8 inches of water.  

A water main breakage occurred May 24th damaging dozens of properties. 

Holly Henderson lives in that area and says at first the leak was small but then added pressure from the water main break amplified the situation. 

“All of a sudden there was a loud bang like a gun going off because we have a backflow preventer and the lid of that blew off like a gun and water came out like a fountain,” she says.  

While Henderson and a dozen other residents were cleaning up the damage from the first mess, just a few weeks later, on June 3rd, the exact same event happened reflooding everyone’s basement.  

“So, there was wall damage and it’s a fully finished basement so the carpet was ruined, the stair carpet was ruined, the drywall was ruined, and numerous personal items, all furniture, tables, and things like that are all damaged,” says Henderson.  

Many of the residents feel like the City of Moose Jaw should be held responsible for the damage since the cause of the floods came from the city’s underground cast iron piping.  

Currently, the city is working to replace all 80 km of cast iron pipes in Moose Jaw.  

“It’s just age and condition. It’s not a lot different than the well-established problem that we have with our cast iron network around the city... it’s aging and is in deteriorating condition and that’s why council has initiated the capital program to replace it,” says Darrin Stephanson, the city’s Director of Public Works. 

Stephanson adds that it’s extremely unfortunate that the residents had to deal with these floods and the damages because the cast iron pipe in that area along Main Street south is scheduled to be replaced within the next 4-8 weeks.  

However, when it comes to the city taking the liability for the situation, Stephanson says the city can’t simply hand over cheques to residents to fix their properties. Instead, residents need to go through a liability claim with the city.  

“You have to submit a claim against a municipality. Then it goes through a claims process. The city has an established claims process where a citizen basically submits a report of the who, what, when and where of what happened. Then the city does the same... that goes to a third-party adjudicator that’s external to the city. They take all the submissions and they review the city’s act and other relevant legislation on who would be considered liable under those circumstances and then they’d make a ruling,” says Stephanson.  

Michelle Acorn owns a tenancy in that area that was a victim of these floods and she shared that when the first flood occurred, city workers came to the area just before noon to deal with the issue and told the residents that they needed to wait for the water to stop flowing. After an hour of waiting, Acorn says she watched the city workers drive away from the site without any notice or warning.  

She says she called the city roughly 16 times before getting a hold of someone to have the crew come back.  

A crew of two men then showed up over three hours later. The clean-up process was then handed over to an external company apart from the city to pump out the water from the basements and have them professionally dried and pressure washed. 

Then the company had to return for a second time to repeat the process when the basements flooded again in July. 

Acorn said she was extremely frustrated with how the city handled the situation and how the city communicated with the residents.  

She also feels that it’s unfair to have to go through a liability claim process.  

“Their policy is that you pay with your insurance and then you have to tell them (submit a claim) what happened, when it happened, verify that it happened and then it goes to adjudication and then they decide if they’re going to be held responsible. I find that very annoying because our insurance rates will go up,” says Acorn.  

She then shared that she will be paying for the damage out-of-pocket to avoid any increase in her insurance rates.  

She also shared that another landlord on the street had lost their tenant because of this situation. 

According to Stephanson, three residents from that area have submitted liability claims that are currently being processed.