Plumber helps residents impacted by Detroit water main break: It looks apocalyptic

DETROIT (FOX 2) - About 398 houses in Southwest Detroit were effected from Monday's massive water main break.

Mayor Mike Duggan says he wants to start fixing these houses by next Monday.

"That magnitude of it is something you have to be up close to appreciate," Duggan said.

Crews isolated the massive water main break Tuesday and now, cleanup starts.  There has been no cause found yet, why the 4.5-foot wide pipe burst this week – flooding nearly 400 homes.

Now 40 percent of the impacted families are in hotels, or staying elsewhere.

"We are going into full recovery mode and that starts with a city inspector," Duggan said.

Eighty inspectors have been going in and out of homes. It is the first step in the lengthy process and by next Monday – the City of Detroit is hoping to start making repairs.

Great Lakes Water Authority and Detroit Water and Sewarage Department are committed to cover costs of everything insurance does not.

"I’m hoping that within the next six weeks we can have all of this behind us in regard to having everyone back in their home. That’s our goal," said Gary Brown, DWSD director.

James Rios, AKA "Jimmy the Plumber" is from Southwest Detroit.

"It looked like the apocalyptic movies," Rios said. "Abandoned cars, doors open, icicles, water up to the windows."

He has been out there for the last 48 hours, working for free.

Related: Detroit water main break: Church provides supplies for those who need it most

"These are echoes of my own family, generations ago," he said. "And I know the fear and I know the concerns."

He’s doing whatever he can to help.

"I want to check for gas leaks and then we are also going to drain your water system so it doesn’t freeze overnight," he said to one homeowner.

He says it’s the absolute worst time of year for something like this to happen - furnaces destroyed, and pipes inside – now frozen.

"All this water sitting in the horizontal pipe will freeze, it will expand and freeze, and once they turn it on, when no one is home, it’ll spray," Rios said. "Throughout the walls on the second floor, and every bathroom in there."

He’s working to prevent secondary floods – and unclogging any remaining standing water.

"This is what I’ve seen in all these houses, so what we have here is this very fine mud," he said.

It needs a monumental undertaking in his eyes to get back to some kind of normalcy.

"Water ruins everything, I can tell you that," Rios said.

Jimmy the Plumber says there are some language barriers and overall mistrust because of the current state of immigration here in the US.

Jimmy Rios is accepting donations for his work. If you would like to help him, he says no amount is too small.

His Zelle is jmackimports@gmail.com

His Venmo is jimmytheplumberllc (9121)

His PayPal is james.rios305@gmail.com.

Jimmy Rios