I was driving down La Vista at 2 p.m. when I came upon this unfortunate scene pictured above.
Clearly a water main had burst, and water was gushing up from the middle of the road. I pulled over to snap a photo, and about five minutes later a man came rushing over to the street to see what was going on.
The man was Peter Henry. Peter and his wife, Cathy, I learned, are the owners of the house at the corner of La Vista and Brookside. The water was rushing down their driveway and around both sides of their house. It was also making its way into their garage and was getting uncomfortably close to inviting itself into their kitchen.
The kicker? The couple had just moved into their new home a month ago.
The water was buckling their brand new driveway and flooding their brand new garage full of yet-to-be-unpacked furniture and boxes and other odds and ends.
Peter began piling logs and bricks around the entrance of the garage to try to divert the water while Cathy ran around the yard taking photos and videos to document the damage the water was making.
Dallas police sergeant S. R. Johnson with the Central Operations Division showed up at about 2:20 p.m. or so. He assured Peter and Cathy that the water was clean and not sewage, but there was nothing he could do except wait with the couple for someone from the water utilities department to arrive and shut off the water.
Several neighbors dropped by and a reporter from Fox 4 News came by to take video footage of the mess. At least three vans from water utilities drove by, but they all said they weren’t the right department to shut off the water main.
Finally at about 3:15 p.m., more than an hour after the water main burst, a crew from the water utilities department arrived and shut off the flow of water.
The supervisor, who said he couldn’t speak with me, told Peter the crew was delayed because this was the fourth water main burst today, probably because of the heat. He said it would take the crew a couple hours to repair the busted main and turn the water back on.
So if you live on or around La Vista and you lost water pressure today, that’s why. Just be glad it wasn’t flooding your house.
Check out the video:
