Photo by mofo
Temperatures in the Washington area are expected to hit the mid- to high-90s today, with heat indices possibly reaching 105. What could possibly make it worse? Well, about 100,000 customers of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission in Prince George’s County are about to find out what it’s like to spend a few days in a heat wave without running water.
The commission, the water utility for Prince George’s and Montgomery county, says it needs to make immediate repairs to a 54-inch pipe that services a wide swath of Prince George’s County. At some point this afternoon—or possibly earlier, if the pipe ruptures—WSSC will be shutting off the aging pipe. “We’re still looking at isolating and shutting down the pipe late this afternoon,” WSSC spokesman I.J. Hudson says. “We have people at the valves should it blow.”
Once the pipe is shut down, numerous communities will lose water service, including Morningside, Hillcrest Heights, Camp Springs, Forest Heights, Temple Hills, and Oxon Hill. The affected area also includes Joint Base Andrews and the National Harbor development.
Prince George’s officials are advising all residents to stock up on bottled water today ahead of the pipe being shut off. When it is, Hudson says there will still be enough water in the system to run for 12 to 14 hours. But then the affected customers will enter dry spell. “It could be two or three days, we’re saying several,” Hudson says. “Don’t know until you do the excavation.”
The problem pipe is known as a pre-stressed concrete cylinder, constructed from a thin-seal core, layered in concrete, and surrounded by steel wires, which gives the line its strength. The pipe dates back to 1965, but Hudson says years of erosion has caused some of those wires to snap. Now, structural integrity is failing. Engineers will determine how many of the pipes 16- and 20-foot sections need repairing once the pipe is excavated.
“We have an aging infrastructure,” Hudson says. “We have a pipe of the same material put in in 1945 that’s working just fine.”
Prince George’s County officials will open an emergency operations center at 11 p.m.
