Water Main Break Causes 20 to Lose Water Service

 

About 20 Kensington residents are without water service tonight and some are without power after a water main broke on a residential street near Cedar Lane.

The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission was called to the break at about 6 p.m., WSSC spokesman Lyn Riggins said. The six-inch water main under the road in the 4400 block of Glenridge Street is 72-years-old, Riggins said.

“Unfortunately, that’s what happens when you have old pipes. They at some point come to their useful end and they break,” Riggins said.

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services instructed Pepco to shut off power to a number of residents as a precaution, Riggins said. About six saw their basements flooded by water from the break.

Riggins said it takes four to six hours to fix a typical break and restore service, though larger breaks can take longer to repair. Workers were arriving on the scene at around 8:45 p.m. to pump out the water from a roughly five-foot deep hole in the road and assess the type of damage to the pipe.

WSSC consumer advocates were talking to residents affected by the break. Riggins said WSSC will provide water to the residents for the duration of the service outage, as is typical.