Possible water main break in northwest Calgary leads to significant flooding, stranded cars

Significant flooding in Calgary’s Bowness neighbourhood on Tuesday night led to seven cars getting stuck and required the city’s fire department to rescue 13 people.

A fire official told CBC News that while the cause of the flooding had yet to be confirmed, he believed it may have resulted from a possible water main break.

Police and firefighters responded to the flooding along 16th Avenue N.W.

Trevor Sommerfeld, acting battalion chief with the Calgary Fire Department, said there was significant  flooding underneath the CP rail bridge near 69th Street N.W.

He said he assumes the situation has to do with a water main break. The situation unfolded along the same avenue as the catastrophic break involving the city's Bearspaw south feeder main that occurred in June 2024.

“The flooding underneath the bridge itself is quite heavy," Sommerfeld said. "It’s obstructing two of the four lanes on 16th Avenue, but we do have our CPS (Calgary Police Service) partners shutting down 16th Avenue in its entirety."

The westbound lanes of 16th Avenue were closed between Home Road and Sarcee Trail on Tuesday night, and police said they expected those closures to be in effect for several hours.

Sommerfeld said the flooding does not initially appear to him to be as significant as what occurred after the water main break in 2024, but noted it is still a large volume of water.

No serious injuries have been reported, police said. Sommerfeld said the city’s waterworks team arrived at the scene Tuesday night to try to determine what caused the flooding.

People were asked to avoid the area and to wait for further updates from the city, Sommerfeld said.

A water main break in June 2024 dropped the city's water supply into a critical state, led to a state of local emergency and months of water restrictions.

A report investigating what caused the 2024 incident revealed several likely causes, including microcracks along the pipe and surrounding soil conditions, which contributed to the feeder main's deterioration.