Broken Water Main Floods Lafayette Home

A water pipe break flooded at least one home and left 35 others without water today in Lafayette, according to East Bay Municipal Utility District officials.

At 7:50 a.m. today, the district received word of a broken water main at 3723 Highland Road.

Responding crews estimate that the pipe was leaking 7,500 gallons per minute, EBMUD spokeswoman Nelsy Rodriguez said. Rodriguez reports that it spilled water for roughly 30 minutes before the pipe was shut off.

The leak caused flood damage to at least one home, she said.

The city recently repaved Highland Road, Rodriguez said, so crews had to break concrete in order to find and shut off the valve.

Rodriguez said age or corrosion could have been responsible for the 12-inch cast iron pipeline’s break. “There are a lot of possible factors,” she said. “When they pull out that chunk of failed pipe, we’ll have a better guess as to what it was.”

Such pipes can take up to 8 hours to repair, Rodriguez said.

She expects water to be restored sooner than that to the 35 nearby homes that lost service.

--Bay City News