Water Main Break Leaves Businesses Up A Creek

Tuesday, February 6th 2007, 8:53 pm

By: News On 6

A water main break turned a busy Tulsa street into a river, and left several businesses up the creek. It happened Tuesday afternoon in the 3000 block of East Pine near North Harvard. The News on 6â€™s Omar Villafranca reports city crews responded quickly, but the work will take time.

Traffic wasn't the only thing running through the street on east Pine. A 16-inch water main busted spilling thousands of gallons of water down the street. The break also sunk several nearby businesses. Jacob Cavazos owns the building across the street from the water main, and several of his businesses donâ€™t have water.

"Fortunately, it didn't reduce the water pressure, and we were able to accumulate some water for tonight," Cavazos said. "If it's not fixed by tomorrow morning, I'm assuming we have to shut down, because in the food business you have to have water and all the utilities available."

While Jacob's business slowed down, city crews were hard at work trying to fix the problem. Once they reach the pipe, they'll be able to see how bad the break is. From there, it could take a few hours, or few days to fix.

The break will take time to fix, but the guys at â€œOneupâ€ have a sense of humor. They work at an Internet cafÃ©, but with no running water.

"No running water kind of makes it difficult to make some coffee, plus we got a river through the parking lot right now, so that kind of messes things up for us a little bit," said cafÃ© manager Wes Gregory.

City crews say it could take 16-20 hours to fix the water main and restore water. And City workers say it may take a few days to repair the road.