Fire hydrant blows, damages CBD storefront
A fire hydrant that blew in the early hours of Wednesday morning has destroyed a storefront veranda on Nelson’s Trafalgar St.
Debris from the veranda littered the pavement in front of the Fat Tui cafe after the hydrant blew about 3am.
At the site of the burst water pipe about 9am, a worker was seen standing in the waist-deep hole as the cleanup began.
Nelson City Council group infrastructure manager Alec Louverdis said the cause of the pipe failure was being investigated.
“The fire hydrant blew, and you can imagine that a fire hydrant has got some pressure behind it.”
Water was restored to businesses about 9am, but people were urged to flush taps until the water ran clear.
Louverdis said workers were focused on getting the site cleared, but it appeared there may be asbestos in the damaged veranda, so a safe plan was being devised to clean up the scene.
That included liaising with the property and business owners.
The situation was “not ideal for a Wednesday morning, but nobody was hurt”, he said.
Cleaning up the veranda safely and getting the footpath open was the priority, he said.
Fat Tui owner Kaylene Walker said she heard about it as she was driving to work, and it looked like the business had taken the brunt of the damage.
Walker had been able to take a quick look inside and could see water damage but was waiting to learn the full extent of the damage.
In an update yesterday morning, the council said contractors were back at the site, clearing “debris off the veranda roof and the final remnants of asbestos from within the shops”.
The footpath remained closed.