A handful of businesses and houses were without water Friday as two main waterlines burst in the city.
A major water main break on Mount Bernard Avenue at intersection with Main Street was indicated by water flowing to the surface around 8 a.m.
The Millbrook Mall, Humber Motors Ford, Rogers Cable and Tim Horton’s were expected to be without water from approximately 1 p.m. Friday until midnight.
At the same time as this a second break occurred on East Valley Road that caused an emergency water outage from building numbers 126 - 140 in the late morning that was expected to last no more than 12 hours.
Traffic on East Valley Road, North Street and Lomond Street was disrupted to fix the repairs.
Low water pressure at The Western Star disabled the fire sprinkler system because of insufficient water flow.
In the event of a fire, the building would have been without a sprinkler system, causing employees to be evacuated around 10 a.m., while waiting for fire service to arrive until the pressure was restored.
It’s is not common, but not unusual for two water lines to burst at the same time, said Mike Dolter, the city’s chief administrative officer.
He recalls last year two main lines bursting on the same day also.
Dolter said the city is looking into a potential problems with the pipe on Easy Valley Road, as last year there were a few breaks in the pip last year further down the road.
Pipelines can burst for a number of reasons, Dolter explained, including the age, vibration from traffic, water pressure or weather patterns.
“Like a lot of most municipalities we can’t afford to be pulling out water pipes as much as we would like to, because we know in some areas there are issue,” he said. “We’re looking programs to regulate and reduce our pressure.”
The break at the Mount Bernard intersection is at the bottom of a steep hill, where water pressure reaches, 200 psi (pounds per square inch), he said.
mphilpott@thewesternstar.com
Twitter: WS_Meaghan
