The community of Beiseker was brought together to overcome a “calamity,” Mayor Ray Courtman said, after a water main break on Oct. 1 caused the entire village to be without running water.
Public Works brought in well water and residents were making their personal rain barrels available to ensure everyone had a chance to get water before it was turned back on shortly before 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 2.
“There was a lot of co-operation for the small village,” Courtman said. “I was really proud of us.”
The incident was the result of an old valve that blew on the intersection of Nineth Street and Fourth Avenue. According to Beiseker CAO Jo Lambert, that happened to be right next to a reservoir and the location of several other gas, power and phone lines.
“This just happens to be a bad corner for all those other lines,” she said. “Our guys worked all night on (getting the water back on).”
The Village took extra precaution, she said, waiting an hour and a half for those lines to be painted before digging, so as not to cause further disruption to other vital services in the community.
After water services were restored, a boil water advisory from Alberta Environment and Alberta Health was in effect until two bacterial samples from the water, taken 24 hours apart, cleared a test, Lambert said.
The advisory was finally lifted by 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 7.
“We know what a large inconvenience it is for people to have to go without water, so we try to get it fixed as fast as possible,” she said.
During the outage, Courtman said the municipality noticed there was some work that needed to be done in regards to increasing communication to the residents.
The Municipal Office phones were ringing “off the hook” from curious and concerned residents, Lambert said, which occasionally made it difficult for staff to get a line out to deal with the water main break.
Though Beiseker’s website, social media, the electronic board outside the office and Courtman’s blog – raycourtman.blogspot.ca – were used to inform residents, there were many who did not find out about available well water until after 9 p.m. on Oct. 1 when the truck had already left the village.
“We’re thinking of ways to communicate things like this in the future,” Courtman said. “Hopefully the next calamity will be a while down the road after we’ve sorted out this communication problem.”
