Burst Pipes Cut Off Service in Southeast

Work at Reservoir Might Be to Blame

Utility crews fanned out across Southeast Washington yesterday, repairing six waterline breaks that flooded intersections, buckled streets and left dozens of residents without service for hours, officials said.

Five burst pipes were water mains, and one was the ruptured connection for a fire hydrant. The breaks left about 50 customers without water. Officials were not sure what caused the disruption, but it might have been related to the cleaning of an area reservoir Monday night, said Charles W. Kiely, assistant general manager of consumer services for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority.

People began calling the water authority just after 1 a.m., when the first mains broke. Some of the breaks flooded streets and caused water pressure to plummet, officials said.

A six-inch connector for a hydrant at Valley Avenue and Atlantic Street SE broke, flooding the basement of an apartment building and forcing two families to relocate; a 16-inch main burst at Fourth Street and Mississippi Avenue SE, affecting homes and Simon Elementary School; an eight-inch main at F Street and Texas Avenue SE broke, cutting service to 26 homes; an eight-inch pipe broke at Morris Road and Mount View Place SE; an eight-inch pipe burst at Bryan Place and Bangor Street SE, affecting 10 homes; and a 20-inch main flooded the area around 18th Street and Minnesota Avenue SE, affecting the pressure in homes across that neighborhood as repair work continued throughout the day, WASA spokeswoman Michele Quander-Collins said.

Brenda Henderson, who lives in the 1800 block of Minnesota Avenue SE, watched a small, brown river flow past her home about lunchtime.

"I knew something was wrong when I flushed the toilet this morning and the water kept coming in brown," Henderson said. "I needed to rinse my dogs' eyes with water this morning, but I'm not going to use this water."

Kiely said that the cleaning of the Fort Stanton Reservoir would not have caused the breaks but that operations after the cleaning may have triggered the incident.

The D.C. Fire and Emergency Services Department checked hydrants and prepared seven engine companies dedicated to water supply in case a fire occurred while repairs to the mains were underway, Lt. Sean Egan said.