BATAVIA — With water shut off after a water main break led to flooding along Richmond Avenue between Union Street and Vernon Avenue this morning, crews were waiting for the go-ahead to start work on the break.
City police have Richmond shut down between Vernon and Union.
City Water and Wastewater Supervisor Doug Houseknecht said the department got the call around 8:30 a.m. The water main break was near Union Street and Richmond Avenue.
“I bet the water was bubbling a foot and a half out of the ground and flooding this whole area,” he said. Houseknecht and Nelson Weibel, water plant chief operator, said it took an hour to an hour and a half to get the water shut off.
“It was going down the street, down to Vernon. This was flooded,” Houseknecht said, pointing toward the corner of the Van Detta Stadium entrance area near Richmond and Union. “The concessions stand, you can see the line on the wall where it was underwater That was all flooded.”
Weibel said at least 500,000 gallons of water was lost due to the water main break.
“The water plant. That’s where you see the break. We monitor the tanks,” Weibel said.
Houseknecht said he didn’t know how many customers were affected by the water shutoff this morning, but that it was generally customers on Richmond between Redfield Parkway and Oak Street.
“All the side streets are good, it’s pretty much just from Redfield to Oak (along Richmond Avenue). There’s two mains, so some of them might have water still,” Houseknecht said.
Weibel said water had only been flowing about 20 minutes at the time the city was notified. “We found it right away,” he said. “It was an hour to an hour and a half to find all the valves and get them shut down,” he said.
Around 11:30 a.m., the city was waiting for utility crews to come and stake out utilities, Weibel said.
“That would be phone, gas, electric — any undergrounds. We can’t dig until that’s done,” he said. “Right now, we’re assembling our equipment too, to start the work — dig down, find the break and replace or repair the piece of pipe that’s broken.”
How long it would take to do the work was unknown, Weibel said this morning.
“It depends on how fast you find it and how big the break is,” he said. “There’s no way to estimate it at this time, how quickly it would be back on. This is a large break.”
Houseknecht said the water should be back on later today.
Weibel said, “In the immediate area, when we do get the water back on, the water will probably be brown, like when we flush hydrants, just because you’ve had that down and back up — the pressure change in the line. For that reason, don’t do wash, stuff like that.”
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
