Water main break leaves parts of Alpine
high and dry

By Mary Hay Davis
The Alpine Sun

     ALPINE — “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!” — So said the Ancient Mariner in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem. But that phrase could have equally come from many Alpiners’ lips on the afternoon of last Thursday, April 19. The unexpected break of a substantial water main left many Alpiners high and dry, or all wet, for up to 18 hours.

Above, this hole, located behind Jennifer’s Feed on Arnold Way, was filled with Padre Dam workers for two days as they repaired the broken water main. Below, Armando Sanchez takes advantage of a Padre Dam water truck that was made available in the Daniel’s Market parking lot, for residents to fill up their own containers with safe, potable water.

     Padre Dam Water District workers knew there was a leak earlier in the week, and posted signs of “Flooded,” between the Alpine Village apartments and up towards the post office, in order to warn all approaching motorists. On Tuesday and Wednesday, there were mere trickles of water in the roadway.
     However, when the crew went to repair the leak on Thursday, the excavation of the roadway released pressure that apparently had been holding the line intact.
     The unexpected burst sent a rush of water cascading down the 2000 block of Arnold Way towards Tavern Road.
Padre Dam Water District employees immediately began to shut down Arnold Way between Tavern and the library.
One crew member from Padre Dam said there had been signs of an apparent leak earlier in the week.
     “We had to make an unexpected emergency shut down when we went to repair a small leak. We had signs of a small break, but the 18\-inch steel main broke when we went in to repair the line.”
     The untimely break sent repercussions throughout Alpine, and affected many businesses. The outage affected businesses and residences alike, from the triangle area of Alpine Boulevard and Arnold Way, west towards Midway Drive, and north into Crown Hills.
The local school district was also affected. Alpine Union School District’s transportation director said that while not a major disturbance, it was an unexpected factor that the bus drivers had to deal with during the afternoon commute.
“We improvised,” Candy said. “The schools remained open the next day also, and we just had to work around the repairmen.”
     The Alpine Fire Protection District joined in many residents’ pain when they lost water at the Alpine Station, but managed to carry on their operations as usual. Fortunately, the AFPD already had a plan in place to deal with the disruption of service.
     “Once we learned of the extent of the outage, we contacted other fire districts to get their water tenders on standby,” said Fire Chief Darrell Jobes. “In a situation like this, we coordinate both with Padre Dam and other neighboring agencies in order to be prepared.”
     Jobes continued, “The water district advised us of the hundred blocks and streets affected by an outage. With longer planned outages, the water district also provides fire tenders to assist in fire preparedness. They also let us routinely know of more minor things, like a fire hydrant that is out of service.”
     Many Alpine businesses were not merely inconvenienced, but lost a good chunk of their weekend business by the unexpected loss of water. Although the main water outage was from Thursday night into Friday morning, the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health arrived in Alpine Thursday evening, and continued to shut down businesses all day Friday and into Saturday morning.
     “This happens occasionally around the county,” specialist Neil Bleich said. “We close down business when they lack potable water to cook or meet sanitation needs, such as allowing employees to wash their hands. After the break is repaired, water districts typically purge the lines and super-chlorinate them.”
     Several restaurants were shut down Friday morning and were not allowed to resume operations until Saturday at around noon. Businesses affected by the shut down included Al Poncho’s, Manana’s, Panda Machi, Donato’s, as well as the Alpine Community Center.
     Several events were scheduled to take place at the community center over the weekend, including a wedding reception.
     “The caterer kept calling me every ten minutes to see if we had been given the okay for them to come in to start preparations,” said Sue Roff, the center director. We also had to shut down the lunch program, but fortunately I had gone to get take-out pizzas from Vons on Friday for our seniors.”
     “We also were able to keep the day care center open during this time, as the community center has a well. We were able to re-route well water in order to have a water source,” Roff said. “Having lived in Alpine for 25 years, I’ve learned to be prepared and not expect things to be up-and-running or handled immediately like other places.”
     Roff’s self-sufficient mindset apparently paid off in spades for the daycare charges and senior lunch recipients, as well as one very lucky bride. The center’s water was restored by 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, allowing the caterers plenty of time to prepare for the event later that day.
     Boil notices were posted for residential areas within the area, however, many residents raised concerns that they were not notified about the potential danger.
     “We got notice about the water being safe again, but we were never told in the first place not to drink it,” said one Alpine Village resident. “The only notice is a piece of paper posted by the mailboxes, no one came to tell us that our water wasn’t safe.”
     Padre Dam made potable water available to affected residents who had to bring their own containers. Water tanker trucks were available at the Creekside Shopping Center and at Daniel’s Market, and many residents partook of the district’s offer.
     The water district confirmed that the pipe ruptured Thursday afternoon and was not repaired until the morning of Friday, April 20.
     “At its peak, the outage affected over 600 customers in Alpine, with at least 528 being affected overnight,” said Melissa McChesney, the Communications Coordinator for Padre Dam. “We did use our automated call back system that alerted many customers within an hour of the incident. We also routinely make attempts to notify our bigger users, such as schools, of the outage, so that they can then relay the information to other community members.”
     With the advance of technology, more of these automated reverse-dial type systems are being used by various entities during emergencies. The Alpine Union School District already utilizes the Connect-Ed system, and Padre Dam’s system is similar.
     “Unfortunately, we are only able to contact those customers who have up-to-date phone information. We would ask all of our customers to check their records and make sure we have the most current contact information for them, so that should something like this happen again, we can reach them to make emergency notifications.”

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