Water main breaks in South Strabane
The water main break at Route 19 and Manifold Road in South Strabane Township
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
A Pennsylvania American Water Co. crew operates a backhoe Friday in a lane of Route 19 north near the Manifold Road intersection after a water main broke there.
A water main break Friday morning left many in South Strabane Township’s busy Route 19 corridor without water for at least part of the day.
The rupture in the main occurred near the state highway’s intersection with Manifold Road in the busy commercial strip, near the township offices.
“We have water here, (but) the surrounding places don’t so much,” said township secretary Ellen Wallo. That included the police station, just behind the main township building.
Pennsylvania American Water spokeswoman Melissa Walters said workers turned off a valve about 1 p.m. to stop leaking from the 12-inch main, which had broken about 5 a.m. She said six to 10 customers were affected. She expected service to be restored in the evening.
“Those pipes tend to be 50 to 60 years old, so they come to the end of their useful life cycle and experience breaks,” Walters said.
More customers than the figure Walters provided – including some in the Trinity Point retail complex almost a mile down the road – appeared to be affected. Walters said some “may have had low pressure at one point” while the valve was being shut.
Trinity Area School District Assistant Superintendent Donald Snoke said the 385 students who attend Trinity East Elementary were bused from there to the district high school for classes because of the loss of water in the elementary building.
“We relocated, and it worked, and we had a productive day,” Snoke said.
In the morning, water streamed from the apparent place where the main broke on Manifold and flowed into the parking lot of a BP station beside the intersection.
Next to the gas station, Jimmy John’s remained open despite the outage.
“Our water is shut off. I went to Giant Eagle and bought like 40 gallons of water,” Chad Luzadder, operation partner and manager, said late Friday morning. “It’s not going to slow us down.”
Early in the afternoon, Luzadder said the water company brought in a water buffalo for the sandwich shop to use.
Near the intersection of Manifold and Route 19, a crew worked with a backhoe in one of the northbound lanes of Route 19, reducing traffic to one lane late in the morning. Manifold was closed to traffic from Route 19, but access to Cameron Road on the other side of Route 19 remained open.
At least some of the restaurants in the Trinity Point retail complex displayed signs saying they were closed because of a water outage.
Sherran Shaver of Morgantown was disappointed to find doors at the Starbuck’s there locked about 11 a.m.
“I just wanted a cup of coffee, and I love Starbuck’s coffee” said Shaver, who said she was on her way to visit her daughter in Butler.
A few doors down, Moe’s Southwest Grill also was closed.
The Walmart in Trinity Point lost water in the morning, but “everything (was) back up and running” early in the afternoon, said company spokeswoman Tara Aston.
Kathy Barger, who lives in the Windsor Highlands housing plan in South Strabane, said she seemed to have water at home before she left for work.
“I was able to shower and everything, so it must not have affected us up there,” she said. She said water outages pose an inconvenience for those affected.
“You can’t do anything without bottled water,” she said.