DALLAS — Dallas Water Utilities is dispatching repair crews 24 hours a day to fix a slew of weather-related water line breaks throughout the city. But one repair didn't come fast enough for an unfortunate driver on Wednesday morning.
"I'm guessing it's the next one on the list," Regina Stencel, assistant director at Dallas Water Utilities, said about a gaping sinkhole that appeared Wednesday morning on Knight Street just west of Maple Avenue.
Stencel says the water main in the middle of Knight Street had been repaired as early as Monday and coned off when it erupted again. A driver in a Toyota Prius unfortunately found that second-round leak Wednesday morning. Photos posted on social media by neighbors showed the vehicle with the front two wheels and hood partly buried in the water hole, with a left rear tire up in the air.
Stencel says it is one of 37 water main breaks reported to Dallas Water Utilities since Sunday. By noon Wednesday, she said 17 had been repaired, seven more were under repair midday Wednesday, and seven more had been isolated and were next on the list, with an additional three still awaiting crew assignments.
"We activated yesterday the emergency workload assignments," Stencel said. "Meaning I have everybody working 12-hour shifts. And now I have 18 crews working days and 11 crews working nights until further notice."
One of the most difficult repairs Wednesday had a Dallas Water Utilities crew digging 10 feet beneath the southbound frontage road of the John Carpenter Freeway at W. Mockingbird Lane. They were finishing a patch to a baseball-sized hole in an eight-inch water main before heading back to the Knight-Maple exit to attack that problem again.
Tuesday, the city of Fort Worth shared much the same story.
"No, it doesn't come as a surprise at all," said Mary Gugliuzza with Fort Worth Water. "It is something that we anticipate we're going to have. We just don't know to the full extent."