Water main break turns downtown Halifax into skating rink
Posted Jan 12, 2010 02:57:33 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s been one of those days in Halifax. As firefighters battled a major fire in the city’s South End, a huge water main break also shut down part of downtown turning into a skating rink.
A 15-inch water main burst on Prince Street between Grafton and Argyle early Tuesday morning.
“It’s a horrible mess is what it is, there’s a bunch of salt on the street and gravel and dirt,” says Mike Rhodes, part-owner of the Carleton Hotel.
Over at the Wooden Monkey restaurant, Sarah Beneto described the scene as apocalyptic. They had called off lunch because they had no water.
“Oh definitely we’re losing our entire lunch and I’ve had to send home our entire prep crew,” says Beneto.
Apparently the mess was caused by city crews trying to clean up snow.
“There had been snow removal going on down in the area and one of the machines clipped the fire hydrants and knocked it off,” says city spokesman James Campbell.
The impact caused what is called a water hammer. The water main broke with the impact, breaking up the street and sending water and gravel everywhere.
