Water break in Heights stirs up residents
What residents said was a slow gurgle of water for days turned into a fountain Wednesday on a Heights street that flooded nearby homes almost to the doorways and took city workers nearly four hours to address.
The water line break, along the Heights Hike and Bike Trial parallel to Nicholson, south of 10th, sent water surging more than 3 feet high for hours. Mick Klein, who lives next to the break, said he called 311 to report it around 1:45 p.m.
“I was sitting there working, and it sounded like it was raining,” Klein said.
Residents, Klein included, had previously reported a problem over the past seven to 10 days, they said. At the spot along the bike trail, right in front of a vacant lot, they said water has been slowly bubbling and leaving a little puddle for days. Wednesday, when that became a torrent, they hurried to call in more reports and eventually called practically anyone they could think of as the pool expanded.
Laura Gibney said her husband called the mayor’s office, while another neighbor went to call District C Councilwoman Abbie Kamin.
“I can’t believe no one has been out here to evaluate,” Gibney said.
Wayne Crane, meanwhile, was watching the water line carefully from his flooded porch. The closest house to the spring, Crane said the water was up to the slab his home sat upon, but so far no water had crept in. His main concern, he said, was what all the flooding on one side of his house would do to the stability of his home.
“If it starts shifting everything, that’s a big problem,” Crane said.
Shortly before 5 p.m., as neighbors milled about wondering when the water would be stopped, a Houston Public Works supervisor and worker arrived, quickly assessed it, and starting making plans to turn off the water.
It is a process they are repeating across the city, straining resources. Water leak reports to the city reached a three-year high in August and remained abnormally high in September, according to the city’s 311 reporting system. Since July 1, the city has received 14,288 water leak complaints, compared to 10,407 over the same three-month span last year.
More than one-third of the cases in the past three months have been reported in Districts C and D, straddling downtown Houston to the south and west.
Exacerbated by dry conditions that have led to erosion and worsened underground leaks, the incidents are becoming a campaign issue as city elections intensify.