Local

‘Water main break season;’ Why they are so frequent and how crews respond

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — Deputies responded to a water main break in Montgomery County.

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News Center 7′s Mason Fletcher spoke with Field Services Manager Ronald Casey about why water main breaks are so common this time of year.

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The water main is near W Third Street in Dayton, and multiple residents were without water for four hours as crews worked on repairs.

“There’s about ten homes that will be affected during the repair. No boil advisory or anything like that there,” Casey said. “But there is going to be probably an outage for maybe three or four hours.”

The water main break spilled enough water out to turn a parking lot into an ice rink.

Casey says they’ve seen nearly 40 water main breaks already this year.

“This is the main break season. It usually starts around late October or early November and we’ll probably go into maybe late March or early April,” Casey said.

News Center 7 has covered multiple water main breaks in the last week, affecting Jamestown, Springfield and Vandalia.

“Going from no subzero and then going into the freezing zone, and then also when it peaks back up into the 30s and 40s, you know it’s causing the ground to shift,” Casey said.

For Montgomery County, residents are only impacted by water main breaks for an average of four hours. They have crews ready around the clock to get it fixed as soon as possible, Casey says.

“They are on standby throughout the night,” Casey said. “That way we have some people that we can call and they can come in and fix the water main breaks.”

Casey asks that drivers avoid the area as crews work to fix a main break.

“The risk and the safety hazard to pop up when a main break comes, especially when it’s this cold, it’s going to freeze quickly,” Casey said.

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