Broken Watermain Floods Locke Street South
Locke Street should have water back by noon after a pipe burst and flooded the street, shutting off water service in the area.
City public works crews have been working to repair the break between Hunter and Bold Streets since 2 p.m. Tuesday. Public works spokesperson kelly Andersaon said crews expect the pipe to be fixed first and the road repairs done later this afternoon. “The broken pipe is located under other utilities and it is quite deep beneath the road surface, so it has taken a bit longer than expected to repair,” Anderson said in an email Residents of a Pine Street apartment building were shivering this morning after spending the night without heat. The west Hamilton apartment building was undergoing repairs on its heating boiler when the pipe broke and the boiler could not be restarted without water “How’re we supposed to flush the toilets,” one resident complained after being told by city public works the repair is “imminent.” Businesses in the area were alerted by the city after the main broke. “We had no idea when it will be fixed,” one Pine Street resident told The Spectator. The break has conjured up nightmares of 2003 when a three-metre supply main burst under the intersection of Locke and Herkimer streets, spewing water, gravel and mud 15 to 20 metres in the air and flooding blocks of basements on nearby streets.
Yesterday’s burst pipe on Locke serves as a reminder that Hamilton has entered its annual broken water main season.
Frost can heave water lines and break them by placing a differential pressure on a section of the line, resulting in about 150 to 200 repairs a year in Hamilton.
The city is third in the province in water main breaks behind Toronto and Windsor