Upon hearing about a water main break near Florida Ave. and Euclid St., NW, this afternoon, it was hard not to wonder how the break would impact water pressure should firefighters need to douse a blaze. As we mentioned earlier, there are more details emerging about the impact broken hydrants had on Monday’s fire at the Georgetown Public Library. Fire officials are complaining that they were forced to try three hydrants near the library before finding one that worked. The first didn’t work and all, and the second had very low pressure due to a water main break in the area.

They say the issue did not have a major effect on the emergency response, but that D.C.’s Water and Sewer Authority, who’s responsible for hydrant maintenance, hasn’t responded when firefighters have voiced concerns in the past. Dan Dugan, president of the D.C. Firefighters Association, said that in many cases, firefighters don’t know a hydrant is broken until they actually try to tap it. It’s not as though the neighbors, who can rapidly spot and report such issues as broken street lights or traffic signals, have much ability to watch for malfuctioning hydrants.

WASA says only 53 of the city’s about 9,000 hydrants are out of service. D.C. Fire officials say that, in fact, they encounter many broken hydrants that aren’t on WASA’s list and not clearly marked.

While acknowledging that several inoperable hydrants grouped together “creates an issue”, WASA General Manager Jerry Johnson doesn’t seem concerned by these figures.

As long as more than 99 percent of all city hydrants are working, fixing the broken ones is not a priority, Johnson said. The city tries to keep the number of broken hydrants below 90, he said.

If we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that devastating fires are unpredictable and deadly. Dugan says the city needs to invest in a computerised system to monitor hydrant maintenance. Of course, that would take a major investment. For now, it seems implementation of a more rigorous manual inspection system and better communication between firefighters and WASA could save precious time when rushing to save lives and property in the District.

Photo by Flickr user billadler.