Water main break may leave Crisfield residents without clean water through Easter

Fixing what no one knew was even there.

Thursday afternoon in Crisfield highway crews rush to repair a 6-inch water main ruptured the night before by Maryland Broadband crews who were running broadband cable 4-feet beneath the street.

“They struck an unmarked water main that turned out eventually twelve hours later to be a 6-inch water main that we didn’t have on our 1971 water main charts.”, Said Mayor Kimberly Lawson.

Mayor Lawson says city water main charts only get updated only when a new one gets installed.

The last update came in 1971 and this water main was not included.

For better access fixing it crews had to cut down a tree one of many planted along the mainline.

That plus high water pressure underground made for a difficult and lengthy repair.

Mayor Lawson commented on how it all happened saying, “When that happened it ruptured and for the next 12 hours we were working water pouring out of this main without being able to locate the cutoffs for it. With that, we ultimately had to empty one water tower to take off the pressure.”

Ronald Stanley, a Crisfield resident says, “We’ve already experienced a problem last night when we were, even to use the bathroom, you couldn’t flush the toilet.”

It’s back up and running.

The city says it’s fine to bathe and shower in but officials are urging residents to boil any water before consuming it in case any potential contaminants got into the stream.

It’s a precaution that will last through the weekend which being Easter weekend could be a nuisance for residents.

“It is never fun to inconvenience the public, but it is far more improper to not let them know when there’s something like this so that they’re safety is not at risk.”

As for any other unmarked water mains Mayor Lawson says that he and other Crisfield officials try to locate them if they exist.

The broadband is still expected to be run as originally planned and the Maryland Department of the Environment will be testing water samples from Crisfield in the coming days.