COLORADO SPRINGS— The drastic temperature change over Christmas weekend caused many pipes to burst. One plumber worked overtime to ensure people had emergency water damage help.
"It feels good to be able to serve and help and be there in time of need," said owner of Lujan Plumbing Services and Installations Lucas Lujan.
Other plumbers couldn't keep up with demand, leaving people without water.
"It felt hopeless because I was on a time crunch," said an Airbnb cleaning service owner Sierra Toler. "We were just going straight to voicemails."
One of Toler's Airbnb houses had four pipes burst on Christmas Eve. Toler said her Soulful Quality Cleaning crew were hesitant to call a plumber because they thought they could fix it themselves, "but that was not the case at all."
Lujan said shut the water off immediately and call a plumber. Waiting could cause more damage and cost more to fix. He said people should keep their faucets running and heat set to at least 65 degrees when temperatures outside are freezing.
A church school had a pipe burst on Christmas Eve too. This one caused one-and-a-half inches of flooding in the chapel.
"Water went out into the hallway, a little bit into our library which is right across the hall," said the Springs Adventist Academy admin assistant and treasurer Rhonda Shibley.
Shibley said they had to move the Christmas Eve worship service from the chapel to the library.
"It could have been so much worse...it could have been so bad that we would have had to shut the school down," said Shibley.
In emergencies, Lujan said he can get to people within a few hours.
"We ask customers to be able to be patient with us as well because there's a limited supply of plumbers right now," said Lujan.
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