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Nov 18, 2008 11:15 pm US/Eastern
Cold Weather Causes Water Main Breaks
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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The frigid temperatures are doing more than just keeping you cold; they're wreaking havoc on Baltimore's aging water pipes.
CBS
The frigid temperatures are doing more than just keeping you cold; they're wreaking havoc on Baltimore's aging water pipes.
Dennis Edwards has more on the problems they're causing.
Plunging temperatures caused two water main breaks Tuesday night, leaving 60 families without water and some without heat.
The massive water main break happened in the heart of historic Ashburton. The 16-inch main gave way on Hilton about a half block from Ruby Hatfield's house.
"The bad thing about it is I have steam heat and I have an automatic feeder on my furnace so the temperature is dropping with no water, and we won't have any heat," Hatfield said.
Another break took out water service around Gwynns Falls and Dukeland. These are the latest failures in an aging infrastructure that produced as many as 60 breaks back in 2002. The causes are age, movement of the earth and around pipes, defects in piping and sometimes accidents.
"When the weather gets colder, the ground moves. We have sand and clay soils and there's nothing much you can do about that to stop a water main break," said Kurt Kocher with Baltimore City Public Works.
This repair process could take 24 hours. That means Ashburton residents must cope with not having water and heat for at least another day. That means Ruby Hatfield made a good decision when she and her neighbors stocked up on bottled water. They've also got plans for heat.
"We'll probably plug in an electric heater," she said. "We're old and we have arthritis and electricity's high, but what can you do?"
City officials say there's no way to tell how many mains will break this year. They advise everyone to keep some bottled water on hand just in case.
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