This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/crews-work-to-fix-12-inch-water-main-break-in-downtown-dc-that-snarled-commute/2014/12/16/181a3934-853b-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Crews work to fix 12-inch water main break in downtown D.C. that snarled commute Crews work to fix 12-inch water main break in downtown D.C. that snarled commute
(about 4 hours later)
A 12-inch water main break in downtown D.C. caused headaches for thousands of commuters Tuesday morning, shutting down part of three Metrorail lines. Water gushing from a broken underground pipe Tuesday morning flooded a stretch of Metrorail tracks in downtown Washington, causing havoc for thousands of commuters as transit officials temporarily closed three rail lines in the heart of the city.
The pipe that broke was under 12th Street NW between E and F streets. The break was reported about 6 a.m. and caused water to gush into the streets. Water poured through a gutter gate on the northbound side of 12th Street, causing flooding on the tracks at the Metro Center station directly below. With throngs of riders heading to work during the busiest morning hours, starting about 6 a.m., Metro suspended Orange, Blue and Silver line service to four stations between Farragut West and L’Enfant Plaza in the downtown core.
The water was shut off in minutes, D.C. Water officials said, but not before Metro had to suspend service. Service was suspended for almost three hours on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines between Farragut West and L’Enfant Plaza, with service first resuming at McPherson Square before being restored elsewhere. Just before 9 a.m., Metro said normal service resumed on all three lines, saying that the water receded faster than expected. One of the stations, McPherson Square, soon reopened. But at Metro Center, Federal Triangle and Smithsonian, service on the three lines did not resume until just before 9 a.m. That was about three hours after the water main broke about six feet beneath 12th Street NW between F and E streets, near the Metro Center station.
(Related: So that’s what a Metro station looks like when it floods) The prolonged mess caused not only a slowdown of Orange, Blue and Silver line trains east and west of downtown but also crowding on other lines as many commuters sought alternative routes to their workplaces.
By midday, water crews were still working to repair the break. Officials from D.C. Water had said they expected it to take between 10 and 12 hours for the pipe to be fixed, but around 12:30 they estimated that the repairs would be finished between 6 and 8 p.m. Cynthia Foxwell, an Orange Line rider from Oxon Hill, works at the jewelry counter at Macy’s, near Metro Center. With no Orange trains running there, she said, she instead made her way to Gallery Place, where she boarded a Red Line train that would take her to Metro Center.
The cause of the water main break wasn’t immediately known, but officials said they plan to investigate how the 61-year-old pipe broke. The Orange, Blue and Silver lines, which share tracks through downtown, are located at the bottom level of the Metro Center station. The Red Line runs through Metro Center at a higher elevation and was not affected by the flooding.
Pamela Mooring, a spokeswoman at the D.C. Water agency, said it is not uncommon for water main breaks to happen more frequently at this time of year as temperatures fluctuate. Crews working in the rain hadn’t yet reached the pipe shortly before noon. But unfortunately for Foxwell, a lot of riders evidently had the same idea, and the Gallery Place station was mobbed.
Authorities had closed 12th Street NW between E and F streets as crews worked in the area throughout much of Tuesday morning. “When the train came, I got pushed in,” said Foxwell, who arrived at Macy’s at 8:05 a.m., tardy by 20 minutes. “Everybody was nasty. It was awful. I got pushed into a gentleman, and he pushed me back.”
She said: “I hate being late. I pride myself on being on time.”
John Lisle, a spokesman for D.C. Water, said the trouble began about 6 a.m., when the 12-inch water main — installed beneath 12th Street in 1953 — began leaking. Water gushed up to the street, directly above the Metro Center station, then flowed through a gutter grate and onto the subway tracks below, Lisle said.
His agency shut down the flow of water to the pipe within “a matter of minutes,” he said.
But by then, a stretch of track beds used by Blue, Orange and Silver trains was flooded, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said. He added that service on the lines was shut down because the water was above the level of the rails, making train operation unsafe.
The Metrorail system has 58 underground pumping stations that remove a daily average of 73,000 gallons of rainwater and groundwater from track beds. Stessel said three of the pumps, in the Metro Center area, removed enough of Tuesday’s floodwater to allow service on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines to resume shortly before 9 a.m.
The cause of the water main break wasn’t immediately known. Lisle said repair work probably wouldn’t be finished until the early hours of Wednesday. He said,“We hope it won’t interfere with the morning commute,” referring to motorists.
Metro said the work was not expected to interfere with rail service, which had returned to near normal by late Tuesday morning.
In a Twitter message, D.C. Water officials apologized for the delays, saying it was a “crazy commute.” They also said, “We recognize the gravity of the situation and will repair as quickly and as safely as possible.”In a Twitter message, D.C. Water officials apologized for the delays, saying it was a “crazy commute.” They also said, “We recognize the gravity of the situation and will repair as quickly and as safely as possible.”
Around 11 a.m., D.C. Water officials said in a tweet that they did not expect the water main break to impact Metro’s evening rush hour service but warned that 12th Street will “probably still be closed.” For those with difficult commutes to begin with, the disruption was an added annoyance.
By mid-morning, there were signs of the water’s damage as thick mud caked the corner of 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The sounds of jackhammers could be heard as half a dozen workers in neon green safety vests worked. Leah Singelstad, who works at a law firm, set out by car about 7:30 a.m. from Cambridge, Md., on the Eastern Shore. Twice a week, she drives to Union Station and rides the Red Line to Metro Center, which usually takes 2 1 /2 hours, she said.
Fixing a water main break that measures about 8 inches typically takes crews between six and eight hours, water officials said. But because this one is larger, they expected it to take longer. On Tuesday, with more people than normal driving into Washington because of the Metro delays related to the water main break, it took an hour longer . “Cheverly is where traffic stopped,” she said.
Crews arrived in the midst of the morning commute and continued to work in the area as the lunch hour came. She added: “You’re in the car a long time, anyway. When you add another 45 minutes or an hour, you get claustrophobic.”
Utility companies marked the locations of wires and other underground infrastructure along the block. After that, water workers are expected to drill several test holes and insert listening devices. Orange, Blue and Silver trains headed into the city from the west had to offload passengers at Farragut West (and eventually one stop closer in, after the McPherson Square station reopened). Stessel said the trains then had to back up, to near the Foggy Bottom station, where there is a crossover to the parallel tracks. After switching to the other tracks, the trains headed toward Virginia.
Then, after the grate has been sandbagged to prevent further Metro flooding, the pipe will be recharged with water so that workers using the listening devices can identify where the leak is, according to D.C. Water officials. This way, they can excavate and fix it without having to dig up the whole blocking looking for the break. Because the trains had to back up, train service behind them slowed significantly, causing trains and platforms to become heavily crowded. The same situation occurred east of the flooded area, with trains offloading passengers at L’Enfant Plaza, then backing up to a crossover near the Federal Center station.
The pipe that broke was installed in 1953. Stessel said that 47 buses “were pressed into service for the shuttle operation” between the points where Orange, Blue and Silver line service was suspended. “Obviously not the easiest thing to do at the height of rush hour,” he said of making those extra buses available.
“By our standards, 61 years is actually young,” said John Lisle, a spokesman for D.C. Water. “We have pipes dating to the 1860s, the Civil War. The median age of our pipes is 79 years old, which means more than half of them are older than this one.” Repair workers, rather than digging up the entire block of 12th Street to find the leak in the pipe, drilled several small holes in the street and used a listening device, Lisle said.
There are several office buildings on the block where the pipe broke, but most if not all are fed by more than one water main. The extent of water disruption to these customers was not immediately clear. After the grate was sandbagged to prevent further Metro flooding, the pipe was refilled with water, and workers listened for the leak, which turned out to be about 50 feet south of 12th and F streets, Lisle said. The workers then began excavating.
D.C. Water officials posted in a tweet a picture of the water main break and said, “this is the troublesome sinkhole visiting for the holidays.” Lisle said the sinkhole was made by water crews to “get down to the pipe.” The 61-year-old pipe “is actually young” by D.C. water main standards, he said. “We have pipes dating to the 1860s, the Civil War. The median age of our pipes is 79 years old, which means more than half of them are older than this one.”
On Metro, some riders took the morning delays in stride. There are several office buildings in the block where the pipe broke, but most if not all are serviced by more than one water main, Lisle said.
Nick Toomey, 37, was more than two hours late heading to his office near Eastern Market on Tuesday, but the IT professional merely shrugged. His bosses knew he’d be delayed because of the water main break so he simply waited at home until Metro sent the all-clear signal before heading to Vienna to hop in a train. Usually, he’d be on a train by 7:45 a.m. Pamela Mooring, a D.C. Water spokeswoman, said it is not uncommon for water main breaks to occur at this time of year.
He was still able to get an hour’s worth of work done — the wonders of telecommuting. Cold weather dramatically increases the chance of a break as pipes expand and contract with temperature fluctuations. On average, 400 to 500 water main breaks occur each year in the city, mostly during the winter, Mooring said.
As a seasoned Metro rider, he knows the drill he said. The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which serves much of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, has responded to 1,850 breaks this year, an increase of about 150 over 2013’s total, spokesman Jerry Irving said.
“I make it a habit to always check [Metro’s] Web site before I leave the house,” he said. He said most of the 2014 breaks occurred early in the year amid the frigid weather phenomenon known as the polar vortex.
Other Metro riders said they had received alerts via e-mail or Twitter, warning of the delays. Many commuters had longer than expected rides to work. Aaron C. Davis, Michael Laris and Miles Parks contributed to this report.
Cynthia Foxwell was headed to Metro Center from Oxon Hill. With part of the Orange line shut down, she took her alternate route on the Red Line. But that meant dealing with a jammed Gallery Place station with other commuters who’d had the same idea.
“When the train came, I got pushed in. Everybody was nasty. It was awful,” Foxwell said. “I got pushed into a gentleman and he pushed me back and I said, ‘Sir, I’m sorry, they pushed me in.’”
Her normal exit at Metro Center was closed, and by the time she got to the Macy’s jewelry counter it was 8:05 a.m. She was 20 minutes late. “I hate being late. I pride myself on being on time,” Foxwell said.
For those with terrible commutes to begin with, the Metro mess pushed things toward the edge of commuter sanity. Leah Singelstad set out from the Eastern shore community of Cambridge, Md. at 7:30 a.m. in her Honda Civic.
She drives to Union Station twice a week and takes the Red line to Metro Center, a trek that usually takes her two and a half hours. On Tuesday, it was nearly three and a half.
“You’re in the car a long time anyway. When you add another 45 minutes or an hour, you get claustrophobic,” said Singelstad, who works in accounting at a law firm.
Many Metro commuters drove instead of getting caught in the subway madness downtown, snarling the roads in the process. A stretch of Route 50 that usually takes her 10 minutes took her more than 45 minutes.
“Cheverly is where the traffic stopped,” Singelstad said, describing the town along Route 50, along the Orange Line.
Aaron Davis and Michael Laris contributed to this report.
Read more: So that’s what a Metro station looks like when it floodsRead more: So that’s what a Metro station looks like when it floods
Rider reaction to Metro’s Tuesday morning meltdownRider reaction to Metro’s Tuesday morning meltdown
Nightmare rush hour for ‘tens of thousands’Nightmare rush hour for ‘tens of thousands’