Homeowner irked city responded to hole complaint only after media report

Grace Livingston is relieved city crews have finally covered up a thigh-deep hole in front of her West End home, but wonders why she had to go to the media to get it done.

Livingston reached out to the Free Press about the two-foot hole on Valour Road near St. Matthews Avenue on Wednesday after reading an article about Christine Keilback, who plunged into a shoulder-deep hole near her home in Wolseley on Saturday.

Livingston said she called 311 several times and emailed her city councillor after the hole formed in October, but there was no response.

On Wednesday, a few hours after the Free Press went her home and interviewed her, workers had covered the hole with a wooden board and a cone, and placed a barricade in front of it, over the adjacent catch basin.

“If it wasn’t for (the media), they probably wouldn’t have got anything done,” Livingston said Thursday. “They were here twice yesterday.”

City of Winnipeg communications co-ordinator Lisa Marquardson said staff went to the site Wednesday and determined the catch basin needs to be replaced.

“The work will be completed within the next three weeks,” she said in an email. “In the meantime, the area has been secured and made safe.”

Livingston had worried someone would get hurt, especially at night.

“Did they not take me seriously before?”

Meanwhile, on Lipton Street Thursday afternoon, Keilback could hear staff working on the hole that nearly swallowed her whole on Saturday.

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service’s technical rescue task force was called to pull her out.

Keilback laughed talking about it Thursday. It was — hopefully — a once-in-a-lifetime experience for her, and the city said it had no records of a similar situation occurring in recent history. She’s seen an article published about the fall on People Magazine’s website, and she said the BBC asked for permission to use a photo she had posted on social media of her in the hole.

She said she was thankful for the city’s jump-to-it response.

“Everywhere, we’re so resource-depleted, and I’m sure that they have to triage things as best as they possibly can,” she said.

The hole was formed after a pipe, which connected the basin to a storm sewer manhole or larger main sewer line, was not capped, and material used to fill it shifted away over time.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca