“The Day I Blew Out a 24inch Water Main”
At the end of my first year
of college, my mother arranged for me to have a summer job with the
Besides being a driver for
the old black man, and he was old, maybe 85 or 90, I also did a variety of
other jobs like taking water meters out of service and rebuilding them back at
headquarters; mowing the grass around the town’s huge water towers and then in
the middle of the summer, I got assigned the job of flushing out the water
system of the city.
Now flushing a water line is
a not a hard job as all I had to do was to take off one or more caps off the
fire hydrant connections and then use a large wrench on a nut on the top of the
hydrant to slowly open the large valve at the bottom of the hydrant. As I open
the valve, water would begin to rush out the open fire hose connections and I
would let the water spill into the street and gutter for 10 minutes or so
before I began to slowly close the value. Now one did not have to be too
careful opening the hydrant valve but when I closed it, I had to go very slowly
and if I could feel any vibration at all, I would have to immediately stop or
actual reverse direction. If the valve at the bottom of the hydrant began to
vibrate too much as it closed against it seal, it could send vibrations down
attached pipes such that they might actually break or spring a leak.
So after learning how to open
and close hydrants from my old black companion, who knew where every hydrant
was in the city, for the next several weeks, we proceed to open and close 100’s
of hydrants, slowly making our way out of the city and towards the water
pumping station some 10 miles or more from downtown
As it would turn out, on my
last day of work for the Water Department, there were only 2 hydrants left to
open and close. One hydrant was right on Route 11 and some 2 or 3 miles from
the pumping station and although it wanted to vibrate on me, I go it open and
closed without a problem.
Then on the very last
hydrant, which was actually located on the grounds of the water pumping
station. Again, I slowly opened and then closed the valve and did not feel any
vibration through the whole operation.
About 4 miles from the
pumping station, the radio came to life: “24inch water main blow out at pumping
station!” Oh, no. How could that be? I had feel no vibration at all and
although I had been especially warned that morning to be careful around the
station where the water pressure was highest, my opening and closing the
hydrant there must have caused the main rupture as the timing of the break and
me just being there was to close to just be coincidence.
So we headed back to
headquarters in
By the time we reached the
site of the water main break, it was already dark and so large lights rigged to
generators had to be brought in and set up. Where the 24 inch main had burst,
it had created an 8 foot deep hole in the ground and apparent shot water 100’s
of feet into the air before the pumping station shut down pumping the one and
only main to the city of
Backhoe’s pulling dirt out of
the hole where the rupture was until the main was exposed some 8 feet below
ground. Then one crew down in the hole to inspect and they found the main had
split along the bottom, in line with the pipe and the crack in the cast iron
pipe was several inches long.
How to repair this? I had not
a clue.
More digging around pipe and
expansion of hole until one pipe junction was found. At this junction the
defective pipe fitted into another piece of pipe still partially buried. Then movement to the other end of the pipe, a
good 3 or 4 foot beyond the rupture in the pipe.
With the dirt cleaned away
from the pipe at both ends, a special saw was brought in and attached to the
pipe just beyond where it had split. Then crews of 2 men at a time, worked in
the hole with long sticks, moving this giant pipe saw around the pipe, little
by little. No motor driven saw here and to make one turn of the saw on the pipe
too tremendous human strength and about one turns is all one crew could do
before they had to rest and another crew came in to make a turn. So around and
around the giant pipe saw went through the night until it appeared that the
pipe was close to being cut through and then a crane came and chains were
wrapped around the piece to be removed and more sawing and the bad piece of
pipe was lifted out of the hole and set aside. It was now about
I was sent to get food for
the crews and take my old black companion home as he could not really help and
he had already imparted all he knew about making such repairs.
When I returned to the site,
a new piece of pipe was being sawed that would fit in the hole and mate with
the one end of the main perfecting and on the other end, I learned a special
collar would have to be installed over the new pipe and the existing pipe.
So the new pipe was finally
lowered into the hole and one end fitted into the fitting on one end of the
main and at the other end, it was aligned as perfectly as possible before a
huge, multiple nut and bolt collar was placed over it and the other end of the
main.
For the next 6 hours, the
collar was slowly and gradually tightened and when all seemed to be right, dirt
was placed back in the hole around the main and tamped down tight. From what I
understand the crews say, we could not test the new pipe repair without dirt
covering the pipe as when water pressure was applied, if not covered, the pipe
would in all likelihood jump right out of the ground. What if the new pipe
leaked? Have to do whole job all over again.
By this time, everyone
involved had worked around the clock or been on the job for a complete 24 hours
and was dead tired. Moving away from the area where the ruptured main had been,
the pumping station was radioed to start the pumps again and we all waited to
see what would happen. 5 minutes when by and then 10 and finally a half hour
and all looked good, so we loaded up and headed back to headquarters.
It is here, that I first
experienced how easy it really was to fall asleep driving as it happened to me
twice on the way home. One minute I would be driving and everything seems ok
and then next, I would suddenly open my eyes and realize I was in a car, on a
road, in traffic and had dozed off! Stopped immediately after the first time
this happened to me and tried to shake myself awake before continuing but only
a few miles down the road, it happened again. Did eventually make it home and
dropped dead into bed, dirty clothes and all.
Never did have a chance to
say decent goodbyes to the crews there at the Water Department. Like them all
and all hardworking folks who gave the city plenty of effort for the amount of
pay they received in return.
And in the end, I know I must
have ruptured the pipe and have always felt bad about it but everyone there did
not seem to blame me and I let it go at that.
Do wish I could have seen
water shooting up out of a 24inch water main break out the field it was located
in.