Detroit street flooded and frozen after water main break

A water main collapsed and flooded the roadway, leaving a neighborhood on Detroit’s west side all but frozen.

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    A water main broke on Detroit’s west side, flooding the street.
    
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    The water then frozen, creating a slippery and impossible road to navigate.
    
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    Detroit officials are working on the problem but it could take a few days before it’s cleaned up.
    

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  A water main broke on Detroit’s west side, flooding the street.
  
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  The water then frozen, creating a slippery and impossible road to navigate.
  
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  Detroit officials are working on the problem but it could take a few days before it’s cleaned up.
  

DETROIT (FOX 2):As the state experiences the coldest weather of the year, a water main broke on the west side of Detroit.

With the highs barely climbing above zero, residents on Vaughan near Joy and Evergreen spent the past couple of days staring at a lake in front of their home. However, the cold is just making matters worse.

Over the last two days, the lake began to form and freeze.

Local perspective:

“They were pushing this (ice) around yesterday. They took no action. As you can see, they haven’t done anything,” Jamel Stokes, a neighbor, remarked.

Cars are getting stuck trying to drive through he lake and Stokes said he had to park on his front lawn when he got home.

“You see I have to drive on the sidewalk or freeze to death. “You know what I mean,” Stokes responded.

The city has been addressing the issue. They are aware of the breach and are working to repair it, but first they must remove all of the water from the hole where the break is.

“We re gonna have an excavator come out and takes this water,” Bryan Peckinpaugh with Detroit Water and Sewage Department said.

The city has eight crews working on the water and ice on the coldest day of the year.

We might see more than this one, though. Old pipes all around the city indicate that more could rupture in the future, and the cold weather leads the water mains to burst.

“Whenever there s a drastic change in temperature that puts tension on the pipes and that causes the breaks,” the age of the pipes. The cold temperature is the problem, even though some of these pipes are over 90 years old, Peckinpaugh stated.

Neighbors like Stokes had low water pressure as a result of the city temporarily shutting off the water.

Next steps:

Even once the water is pumped out and the main is fixed, the neighbors will still have to deal with an icy mess.

“As soon as they repair the water main, we re going to have a crew come back out and take the ice and water off the street and they ll be able to get to the street and park off the roadway instead of their lawn,” Peckinpaugh said.

That could take a few days making crossing the street difficult.

“We ve been communicating with these residents and apologize for the inconvenience this has caused,” Peckinpaugh stated.

The Source:FOX 2’s Charlie Langton spoke with Bryan Peckinpaugh with Detroit Water and Sewarage and Jamel Stokes for this story.