A break in a 4-foot section of the waterline on Grand Avenue near Figueroa Boulevard on Wednesday, May 3, cut off water to nearby residents for up to two days and created a traffic nightmare while work crews from the water department dug a 20-foot by 30-foot hole to replace the pipe.
“Most of the people [had water service] around 11:30 p.m., Wednesday night,” said Tedi Jackson, spokesperson for the City of San Diego Water Department. “The next group of people on Bond Street had water service restored Thursday night.”
The areas affected by the shutoff were the 2200 to 2700 blocks of Grand Avenue, the 2700 and 4400 blocks of Figueroa Boulevard, the 4400 and 4500 blocks of Bond Street, the 2600 and 2700 blocks of Hornblend Street and 2600 and 2700 blocks of Magnolia Avenue.
Water service to Mission Bay High School and Mission Bay Golf Course was also shut off during the repairs. Jackson said service for the school and golf course resumed around 11 a.m. on Thursday.
“By Friday, May 5, water was back on at 1:30 p.m., and roads reopened at 2:30 p.m.,” Jackson said. “At that point, there was just one apartment complex that was out at that time.”
During the three days crews worked to replace the broken pipe, the city parked water wagons filled with potable water on the affected streets, and handed out bottled drinking water.
According to Jackson, the waterline break was caused when a 4-foot section of a 12-inch cast iron “T” connector broke. The piece was connected to a 12-inch PVC water main.
“There are three pipes coming together and it was the apparatus in the middle that holds them together,” Jackson said. “The whole thing had to be replaced because of the nature of how it broke. We replaced that “T,” and in addition to that, one of the ways we had water back to customers quicker ” otherwise it would have been off the whole time ” we installed two new isolation valves, one on Figueroa and one on Bond.”
Jackson said the repair would maintain the flow of water in case of any future problems with the connector pipe.
“Basically, that allowed us to turn the water back on to customers on Figueroa the first night, and then on Bond the second night. The good news is, with those two new isolation valves installed, if there’s a problem at that location again, we won’t have people out of water like we did before,” she said.