Water Main Break Causes Holiday Headaches
DENVER (CBS4) - Crews have finished repairing a road torn apart when a water main broke in Denver on Friday.
Water flooded the road at 40th and Federal Boulevard. Many people were without clean water all day.
Joe and Kathleen Tschauner turned on the tap to make coffee but found water that already looked half brewed.
"I ran downstairs and couldn't find anything, but my pipes were vibrating. So I said, 'My gosh, something has happened,' " Joe Tschauner said.
They heard a loud boom and outside a geyser of brown water oozed from the ground and on to Federal.
"Unfortunately, we just don't know why it broke," Doug Sandrock with Denver Water said.
Denver Water says a 12 inch pipe burst. The water flooded the basement of one house while the renters were out of town.
"I've seen pipe that was 6 weeks in the ground break and I've seen a pipe in the process of 100 years in the ground still functional," Sandrock said.
Denver Water says luckily no gas or power lines were in the way making the cleanup easier than it could have been. But it still put 20 homes out of water.
"We have bottled water fortunately and we're learning how to camp," Kathleen Tschauner said.
