Water Pipe Bursts, Flooding Md. Park

Aged System Blamed in Break In Chevy Chase

Stepping outside yesterday morning, Patty McDermott was stunned at what she saw: a river of water surging along a road in her Chevy Chase neighborhood. It had swept away a tree and a phone booth and flooded the neighborhood park, home to a weekly farmers market.

"It was unbelievable," she said later, standing on her porch on Farmington Drive. Her house is just around the corner from where crews were siphoning water out of a gaping hole caused by a broken water main. "It was like white-water rapids out there."

Shortly after 5 a.m., authorities said, a 16-inch main broke along Jones Mill Road just north of East West Highway. Part of the shoulder collapsed, leaving a crater about the size of two sport-utility vehicles and forcing officials to close Jones Mill. Traffic was affected during the morning commute and into the evening.

Access to Jones Mill Road was blocked from East West Highway and Jones Bridge Road, which many commuters use to reach the Capital Beltway or Silver Spring, neighbors said. Officials said they did not know whether the road would be reopened by this morning.

Kira Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, said the age of the pipe was to blame for the rupture. The water main that broke was installed in the 1930s, she said.

The sanitary commission provides water to most residents of Montgomery and Prince George's counties, where it has 5,300 miles of pipe.

This was the first major water-main break in Montgomery this year. Last year, several breaks were blamed largely on the system. Because of its age, Lewis said, "we spent a considerable amount of time repairing instead of replacing."

McDermott said she felt a rumble and heard a noise that sounded "mechanical" about 3 a.m., when she was up feeding her 5-month-old baby. Her husband did a quick inspection of the house but turned up nothing. It wasn't until they woke up later that they realized what had happened. They briefly lost power and water, and McDermott said a trip to her daughter's nursery school, which normally takes eight minutes, took almost an hour.

Lewis said that about 38 households temporarily lost water. Pepco officials said some customers briefly lost power when a tree hit a power line.

Some residents speculated that a road crew working in the area might have played a role in the rupture. Lewis said a crew -- she was not certain from where -- that was working Tuesday along the same stretch of road damaged a small section of pipe. She said that the damage was repaired and that she thought the crew's work did not cause the break.

Neighborhood residents Heidi and Bryan Leonard said they suspected something was amiss when the water pressure dropped suddenly as Bryan Leonard was trying to make coffee yesterday morning. A bit later, the family walked down the street to investigate.

"It was quite impressive," Heidi Leonard said. "There was lots of water gushing, and the field nearby looked like a lake."

She said they didn't lose power, but their water was cloudy later in the day.

By afternoon, the park had returned to its grassy state, although it was a bit muddy. The hole remained next to the road as workers removed the damaged pipe.