A dozen people were forced from their homes Tuesday night after a Griesbach condo building flooded.

“We didn’t know what it was. It sounded like a toilet flushing but it was coming from outside,” said Jean Hoffman-Otsuka Da Silva.

She said the fire alarms sounded soon after. When she went outside, she saw water pouring out of a unit at the end of her building.

“The way our condos are set up there’s a unit on the top, a unit at the bottom, and water was, it was such intense pressure it was coming out of the windows on the second floor of this house and it was rushing all down the side at such an alarming rate.”

Her husband and a few neighbours rushed to the second-floor unit and banged on the door.

“We didn’t know if anyone was inside so we just like start kicking the door and the pressure, the water pressure was so intense that we had hard time to open the door,” said Leo Otsuka Da Silva.

“We just realized the ceiling was open and the water was falling down very, very hard.”

He said the water was as high as his knees.

“We were afraid because the appliances were plugged, so we just ran away,” he said.

They later learned the unit was empty.

They helped the couple living in the unit directly below get out and brought them back to their place to stay warm and dry.

“The fire department came back and said they’d be permitted to go in and grab whatever they could basically get. And when they had come back they were devastated. I mean everything was gone,” said Hoffman-Otsuka Da Silva.

She captured cell phone video of the flood, which she said looked like a scene from a movie.

“It was running continuously for over an hour,” said Hoffman-Otsuka Da Silva.

Water and power to the building was shut off, and the entire building was forced to evacuate. Edmonton Fire Rescue Services brought in its Emergency Support Response Team to help affected residents.

A spokesperson from EPCOR said it was either a water line or valve break, but couldn’t provide any further details because it is private property.

Jean and her husband Leo are staying with family, unsure when it will be safe to return home.

“We packed about a week’s worth of stuff and just our essential documents,” Hoffman-Otsuka Da Silva said.

With files from David Ewasuk...