Unlike past breaks, there was no need to shut off the water to customers to make this repair. “It was a best case scenario,” says Williams. (CBS photo/Shilo Williams)
A 1960s-era water main cracked under Lake Street for the fourth time in a year, but utility crews were able to make quick repairs.
Environmental superintendent Shilo Williams says she noticed a wet patch in the street in front of the Senior Center on Lake Street on Wednesday (5-10-17). On Thursday she brought in a team to try and isolate the leak using listening devices, but the street had dried up. However, the park area between the road and Swan Lake still was really saturated.
Today, crews excavated a hole and found a crack in the water main that almost fully encircled the pipe. Williams says they were able to use a wraparound to stop the leak, but she calls the repair “a bandaid.”
This week the Public Works Department opened bids on a full water main replacement from the roundabout, down DeGroff St. to Hollywood Way. She expects work to get underway in about a month.
She says, “We’re obviously replacing the right water line.”
The crew made the repair in about five hours, beginning at 8:30 a.m. The street was reopened by 1:30 that afternoon. Williams says, “I’m lucky to have such a hard working crew.”
