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Water leak makes for chilly Friday evening repair work
COOK, Nebraska -- City staff worked through freezing temperatures to repair a water main that left more than a dozen residents without water Friday afternoon. The water leak occurred at approximately 1 p.m. Friday afternoon and required roughly 12 hours of repair work, keeping diligent city staff busy until 1 a.m. Saturday morning.
The leak occurred on a six inch water main on the 1100 block of W. Fifth Street and was compounded by a break in the six inch main and a ¾ inch service line in the same vicinity.
A section of West Fifth Street is still closed off as a result of the repair work and is anticipated to have one lane open for traffic by this evening.
According to Utility Director Jesse Dutcher the main break occurred at a bell joint and was most likely the result of the ground shifting from the recent freezing conditions.
Water Department personnel made repairs to the main by removing a three foot section of six inch Ductile Steel pipe and replacing it with C900 PVC pipe, then removing and replacing the corporation valve at the main for the ¾ inch line.
Dutcher said that during the repairs between 10 and 15 customers on West Fifth Street street were without water and crews battled freezing conditions, with the temperature falling to 7 degrees and wind chills of -11 degrees by the time repairs were completed at 1 a.m., Saturday.
The Water Department was assisted by Ken Keslin from the Waste Water Department, who helped with equipment. Tony Rouse and Mat Coulter from the Public Works Department also helped with equipment and kept ice from forming on the street from the running water.
Dutcher expects backfilling in the area to occur today and concrete work to begin Tuesday. He said one lane of the street should be open by this evening and the street completely open by next Monday.
No further water outages are anticipated.