UPDATE: City of Warner Robins restores water service after sinkhole, water main repairs

UPDATE: The City of Warner Robins says water service has been restored after water main repairs following the opening of a sinkhole.

WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Multiple unexpected curve balls were thrown. That’s what James Drinkard, City Administrator for Warner Robins said Thursday as he discussed various complications during a press conference surrounding the water main repairs after a sinkhole opened on Watson Boulevard.

“So the situation that we’re dealing with, we are approximately 48 hours in now and that is not anything that we expected,” said Drinkard.

“We currently have somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 customers potentially impacted, of that, about 350 are residential customers. That has been our primary concern.”

“We have had a series of complications and that has significantly extended this situation that began with the identification of a large natural gas force main that is located in close proximity to the waterline. That means that we cannot put large equipment on top of it. So we were having to dig from the roadway down and have to do some hand work as well,” said Drinkard.

According to Drinkard, complications so far have included the aging water main, built in the 1960s and located 30 feet underground with a boxed culvert on top of it. It was installed by the state as part of the expansion of Watson Boulevard, but no records were kept and it was near a gas main. Crews had to take time to reinforce the hole because it was so deep.

“We didn’t have drawings to work from. We didn’t have maps to work from. We just had to get in and start digging,” said Drinkard.

Water was turned back on around 8:30 a.m. Thursday morning, but another issue was discovered as water was being pushed back into the pipe, so they had to turn everything back off and continue working. They also had to deal with the inability to get concrete delivered as drivers had reached maximum drive time and had to be rested. Concrete for road repairs is expected to arrive on Friday.

“Nobody has gone home. So we are working in rotation and we’re trying to rest people as we can as we deal with this situation,” said Drinkard.

“Some of them wanted to stay. They wanted to be a part of it. They wanted to get the experience,” said Montie Walters, Director for the Utilities Department. “We got a lot of new employees and they see it as a challenge and a learning experience for them, and we do too. So we let them stay to the point, if we start seeing them maybe falling asleep or being tired or whatever, we send them home.”

(Photo Credit: Godfrey Hall/41NBC)

“Somebody could have died, you know that cave-in under there, you could have parked three or four cars and so that was all underground, underwater, coming out in the ditch, 30 foot below the road,” said Walters.

“The initial break that we located was on a 12 inch cast iron main. Our initial plan was to put a repair clamp on that section without cutting in interfering with the flow of water,” said Ron Smith, who’s over the Water Division of the Utilities Department. “That’s how we would have normally done it, but as we dug down 30 feet to uncover it, it happened to be underneath a box culvert and about four feet behind the guardrail of Watson Boulevard. We couldn’t get it safe enough to put any of our people in there and once we located that, then we started looking for other opportunities. That’s when we shut the water off at 6 p.m. and that’s when we came up with the idea of putting valves on both sides of the break, shut the valves off and bypass that water because both sides in that water is dual fed. So our water supply will not be affected and it’s just we won’t have that area and then a later day we’ll redesign that and then we can initially put it back together.”

(Photo Credit: Godfrey Hall/41NBC)

Drinkard says the water is expected to be back on at 8:00 p.m. tonight, but they have preparations in place to start delivering bottled water to truly homebound residents, if another delay happens.

“There is no need to boil water. What everyone should expect, there may be air in lines. So when you first turn that faucet on, it may make some noise, it may spit, it may cough at you, you may see bubbles,” said Drinkard. “The water may first appear a little cloudy, that’s not dangerous by any means and it is to be expected. So our recommendation to residents is turn that water on. Once the water is restored, turn the water on, let it run for 2 to 3 minutes. That will flush the line of any remaining air. The water will clear up and everything will be normal.”

Drinkard also says the city has been getting a lot of questions about water bills and says that since no water flowing through the meter the water will naturally prorate on your bill.

Timeline:

Tuesday 1:30 p.m. the city received a report of a pothole on Watson Boulevard. When crews arrived to the scene they realized a sinkhole was developing.

2:30 p.m. coordinating with the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) they started shutting down lanes.

3:00 p.m. notifications were sent to the media and Robins Air Force Base due to the significant traffic that the road normally has in the evenings.

6:00 p.m. the water was shut off.

Thursday, 8:30 a.m. water was turned back on, but another issue was discovered and had to be shut back off.

8:00 p.m. is the estimated time for the water to be back on.