Columbus faces surge of water main breaks amid frigid weather
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — The frigid weather in Columbus has not only been challenging for residents but also for city water mains that have ruptured because of the cold weather.
“The road was completely flooded’ said Jennifer Barkley, as she talked about her Hilltop neighborhood, after a water main ruptured Monday night.
“The water has been running the whole time into the streets, the street is completely impassable,” said Barkley, “a salt truck, a tow truck, an ambulance have all gotten stuck, right here on this road, and everybody that has to go down this road has had to turn around and go the other way.”
From Clintonville to German Village, ABC 6 has been visiting neighborhoods where water mains have ruptured because of the freezing temperatures.
Barkley says she spent days contacting the city to report the ruptured main in her neighborhood.
“I e-mailed, I called the mayor, I left two voicemails, ” said Barkley, “I made probably five 311 calls.”
ABC 6 is asking Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther about neighbors still waiting for their streets to be repaired.
“Certainly I can understand their frustrations,” said Ginther, “It’s our frustration as well, when you have the greatest snow event in nearly 20 years.”
The city says on Friday, 60 lines were on the list that needed to be repaired. Crews are working seven days a week to fix the ruptured lines.
“We might have 70 tomorrow,” said Brian Haemmerle with Columbus Water & Power, “I expect that number is going to fluctuate on and off every day.”
Six to seven city crews made up of public service, power, and water, plus two private contractors with crews of their own, each repairing at least two leaks a day.
Ginther is urging residents to report issues.
“Please, if there are issues in your neighborhood, please report them to 311,” he said. “We have 60 of these going on right now across the city. I don’t think the temperatures are gonna get warmer for a while. We’ve got a frigid weekend ahead of us, so please report them as soon as you notice them, and we’ll get teams out there as quickly as possible.”
Each break was evaluated and prioritized.
“We’ll look at, is this an emergency situation,” said Haemmerle, “are people out of water, is that causing damage to property, that’s number two, we will hit those first.”
The mayor said the city is not sparing any expense to put the city back together again.
“It means we are going to have unprecedented resources,” said Ginther, “it means we need this city to be open for business and for kids to go to school, and we are going to spend what it takes.”
After four days of calling and waiting, Barkley was able to get out of her driveway on Friday morning after crews repaired the broken water main on her street.
“It took a lot of days to get it done,” said Barkley, “it finally came through, I am so grateful.”
Click here for the weekend forecast.