A woman is speaking out after her car was ruined when she drove into an unexpectedly deep puddle in the St. Albert Centre parking lot.
On Wednesday morning, Jennifer Kim was on her way to drop her 14-month-old son off at daycare at around 6:45 a.m. when she drove her Lexus sedan through what she thought was a normal puddle.
“As soon as I drove into the puddle, I realized something was wrong. My car stopped and then started making a beeping noise,” Kim said.
That is when the mother realized the water level might be a little bit higher than she expected. In fact, it came up past the bottom of her door.
Shaken, Kim called her husband, not knowing what else to do.
“I never expected this to ever happen to me,” she said.“Soon after, the car actually just shut off."
Meanwhile, water was pouring into the back seat where her young son was.
“On the left side of the back seat, there was water leaking in and it was already like two inches deep,” Kim said.
“Then I realized this is not good. This is a lot more severe than I thought.”
It was early morning and not many people were around. Kim called the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA), who flagged her file and told her they would be there as fast as they could after learning she was in the car with her child.
While Kim was waiting for CAA, her husband arrived. He walked in the water and tried to push the car out to no avail, while Kim crawled into the back seat to sit with her son until help could arrive.
Construction workers to the rescue
While Kim waited with her son, her husband enlisted the aid of some construction workers who agreed to help.
The workers pulled up their big truck close to her car, and she passed them her son before hopping into the truck herself.
When she opened the door, more water poured in.
Once CAA arrived, they were able to pull the car out of the puddle, which she said ended up being “more like a swimming pool.”
“You don’t expect that in a mall parking lot.”
The news about her car got worse once she took it to a mechanic and the dealership, who both said at first glance her two-year-old car seems to be a total loss.
“Once the water enters the interior, it just totally fries the computers and the mechanics apparently,” Kim said, adding water was also sucked into the air intake.
Kim said she wished there was some kind of sign in the area to warn drivers about the deep water.
“There are a lot of cars driving by there. It’s a mall parking lot. It’s a regular commuter road, almost. I was almost an example there for people to turn around but I wish there was a sign,” Kim said.
The construction workers in the area blocked off the section of parking lot once Kim’s car got stuck.
The Gazette reached out to St. Albert Centre for a comment, but they declined, saying the water build-up was due to work the city was doing on outfalls in the area.
City responds
The City of St. Albert said in a statement to the Gazette that construction is being done on two of the outfalls on the north side of the Sturgeon River. The construction includes installation of new oil grit interceptors and is part of the city's efforts to reduce the amount of sediment entering the river.
City contractor Wilco had dewatered the upstream pipes on Tuesday, installing plugs before shutting the site down for the evening.
"With the rainfall that evening, water began backing up in the system and pooling on the surface," the city said.
"The pooling water obscured existing potholes in the parking lot, making it more difficult for motorists to avoid them."
The plugs were removed Wednesday morning, allowing the water back through the pipes.
The city said in the future, the plan has been revised to remove the plugs before rain can accumulate, so that water can enter the storm system and discharge into the river.
The city said Wilco, as the designated prime contractor on-site, would be responsible for any potential compensation.
Wilco said they could not immediately provide a comment.
