Repairs ongoing to 54-inch Detroit water main break with 400 residences impacted

DETROIT (FOX 2) - The recovery and repair efforts after Monday morning's massive water main break in Southwest Detroit continues.

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Detroit Water and Sewerage Director Gary Brown said that the 54-inch water main is still being inspected by contractors with a two-feet section needed to be removed. The replacement pipe is expected to be within 24 hours at an update Wednesday.

About 400 houses were impacted from the break and at least 100 homes had at least some water in the basement, Brown said. Residents from 133 households have been staying in hotels. 

"Of the 110 that we've inspected we know the ones that don't have electricity, we know the ones that don't have heat, we know all of them had some form of water damage," Brown said. "We are prioritizing them and will be cleaning out some of those homes tomorrow that were not severely impacted they need to be sanitized and we will start that tomorrow.

"I don’t know if we know the full number displaced, but we now have 476 individuals from 133 households staying at our hotels."

Brown said that most of a six-inch water main that broke during the large transmission main break has been restored. Four houses remain out of service on Beard Street and they have receiving bottled water.  

"Our employees  went door-to-door for about 50 houses delivering water. For the next two weeks they will need to be under a boil water alert which is standard operating procedure," Brown said. 

A translator has been going out with every inspector and the inspections are expected to be completed by Friday - so the repairs can begin on Monday.

Residents impacted can call (313) 774-5261 while those with claims can go to detroitmi.gov/dwsd

Brown said normally a water main would not be put back in service but fire hydrants, need to be up and running. 

He credited Mayor Mike Duggan and his department for the swift recovery efforts.

"That's Mike Duggan - (he) said to go find a way to work with GLWA and cut through the normal red tape that it would take when you are using federal FEMA dollars or CDBG dollars," he said. "These dollars are coming from the Detroit Water and Sewer department as well as GLWA and so we don't have a lot of the red tape in front of us. 

"Secondly, this is not new to us, we've done projects like this where 600 homes in Jefferson Chalmers. It was different circumstances - it was sewage and not water but the effort we are undergoing. Now we have a team of people that are used to doing this kind of work."