DETROIT (WXYZ) — Crews are continuing work on the water main in Southwest Detroit. The timeline for completing the repair and clearing the main for service is expected to run through the end of next week.
RELATED VIDEO: Some residents voice frustrations over timeline for repairs in SW Detroit
The water main broke last Monday, impacting hundreds of households. Volunteers have played a significant role in the recovery effort.
Jimmy Ríos, a licensed plumber, has been on the ground in southwest Detroit for more than a week now, helping families reeling from the water main break that flooded streets and basements and left many with neither heat nor running water.
We were there as Ríos restored both temporarily for Mary Sanchez—free of charge.
“I am grateful that we have somebody that can from the community just come in and help us out with all the stuff cause who else would do this for us for free?” Sanchez said.
Ríos resides in Redford but is deeply connected to the neighborhood. His family moved from the city to east Dearborn as a child, but growing up, he spent a lot of time in southwest with his grandparents and cousins. He and his wife started their family not far from where the water main break happened.
"These are our friends and neighbors we’d walk our dogs and see them, we’d ride our bikes and see them. So, when I heard our old neighborhood was affected, we immediately had, I just had to,” Ríos said. “The one thing I wasn’t prepared for was just the level of devastation.”
Ríos has been in dozens of homes since, spending countless hours clearing drains, checking for gas leaks, emptying lines to keep pipes from bursting. His work and advocacy for residents have made him a fixture in planning meetings with city leaders— relaying on-the-ground information and helping sharpen the city’s response to the crisis.
“I want to again thank all the workers in the neighborhood who are right now in and out of homes trying to restore them as quickly as possible and all the volunteers, including Jimmy the Plumber, who have done so much outreach in the community,” Mayor Mike Duggan said a recent press conference updating the media on the water main break.
Ríos is taking a hit financially; he’s only asking for donations for gas money if residents can afford it, but the biggest thing he’s losing is time.
“I can make money later as a plumber were not hurting, but my children are young. They’re five and six, and we got big kids too, and that whole teenage year, they were not interested in you or anything. This is a short time that they just want to know, but sit on my lap,” Ríos said.
